


the lighthouse

by scramjets



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Gen, M/M, Magic, Minor Character Death, Religious Conflict, Some description of injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-08
Updated: 2017-10-08
Packaged: 2019-01-10 15:54:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 37,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12302523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scramjets/pseuds/scramjets
Summary: In 1932, Merlin and Will take up the role of lighthouse keepers at Arthur's Lighthouse, situated on a small island off the coast. They're lucky for the work, grateful for the opportunity. The isolation of the job is easy to take in stride when it's the two of them.In 1870, Arthur arrives at the lighthouse on his own. The workload is enough to keep his mind off things, so the idea of being lonely doesn't really touch him.But isolation and loneliness can do things to a person. It makes them see what isn't there. Makes them aware of things that aren't supposed to exist. It makes time a thing that is difficult to pin down, that sometimes blurs out completely and lets things through.





	the lighthouse

**Author's Note:**

> All the thanks in the world to Jiang for taking up the mammoth task of turning my words into something worth reading. This story would not have happened without your enthusiasm and support. I absolutely cannot thank you enough. <33
> 
> Also thanks to Quix, for all the cheerleading even if this isn't your fandom :)
> 
> Thanks to the mods of ACBB for running this fest again this year! Thank you for being patient with me.
> 
> I apologise to any lighthouse enthusiasts. Artistic liberties were taken for the sake of the story. Please advise if anything requires further tagging. As ever, all remaining mistakes are my own.

*****

**1932**

Arthur’s Lighthouse stood tall in the middle of a rocky outcrop some two miles into the ocean.

From where Merlin stood on the shoreline, with the seawater rushing up to sink into the stony hem of the beach, the lighthouse looked more a painting than anything else. Picturesque against the backdrop of pale blue sky, it stood atop the black craggy rocks rooted into the churning sea. Gulls hung over the island in place of clouds, their wings long and white, tipped with stormy grey. Their shrill calls to each other were distant, intercepted by the rush of water and the crash of wave against rock. Still they persisted. _Hear me_ , they cried. _Listen_.

It all seemed divided from the realities of the mainland. Merlin cradled a desperate hunger to get there, to reach the island and settle into immediate complications that the task of lighthouse keeping presented.

Surrounding him, the air was drenched with the smell of seawater and seaweed, salty at the back of his mouth and grainy on his skin. His eyes stung with it. The memory of being very young and how his father used to chase him into the surf surfaced in his mind. It brought with it other things, too, like how he used to stand in the water of the beach not far from his childhood village. He would stand there, shivering, aware while unaware of thin thread of his mother’s voice calling, _Not so far, Merlin. Not so far!_

Merlin startled at the sudden, unexpected presence of someone at his elbow. Recognising who it was, he tamped down his surprise and focused instead on what was in front of him, distracting himself in finding similarities and differences to the beach he had grown up on against the beach he found himself at now.

It was colder here, for one.

Though it was sunny that morning, the light hard and bright and making Merlin squint, it didn’t bring with it any heat. Ealdor was further down the coast than where he stood now on Avalon Point, and so it touched warmer waters and had access to a brighter sun.

But it could have also been Merlin’s memories -- the precious few that he had of his father and his mother and the beach, _their_ beach, and the bulk of them before the Great War and the long shadow that it left behind.

“Are you regretting this already?” Will asked.

Merlin took a breath, the answer in his head different to the one he gave Will. “No. Why?”

Will had been there, too. At Ealdor, at the coastline there. But he was a similarity or dissimilarity depending on where in Merlin’s life you looked.  

Merlin glanced to him. Will had his focus set on the lighthouse, and Merlin stared at his profile:  the straight line of his nose and the smooth curve of his chin, prickled with facial hair he had yet to shave. He wondered if Will saw the same things as he did, noticed the same things he did, or if Will saw something else. He didn’t know Will enough anymore to tell. It was all still relatively new.

“No reason,” Will said, finally. There was a small pause before he asked, repeating a question he had asked earlier, “What do you think?”

“It’s nice,” Merlin said, looking away. “It’s really nice.”

The lighthouse was accessible by water only, and the coast guard had supplied them with a small rowboat. At some point, the boat had been white with a band of royal red through the middle. Merlin supposed it would have looked rather handsome then, when it was new, but now it listed on the sand like some abandoned thing, the paint peeling off like insect wings.

With the help of the previous keeper, they piled the last of their gear into the boat and launched off the sand and into the surf.

It was deceptively choppy on the water, and the boat lurched over the waves. The horizon slid in and out of focus in front of them, and the bow smacked the water hard enough that seawater spilled over the sides and pooled in the shallow hull. Will swore and grabbed at some supplies falling loose with one hand still tight on the oar. It wasn’t enough of a movement to jerk the boat about, but it felt like it had been. Merlin dug his nails into the drill of his trousers and concentrated on the roving horizon.

The previous keeper had introduced himself as Leon, a local who was preparing to move across the country to help his family with their struggling business. It had been too much of a lifetime investment, Leon had said, to let it all go.

They also learned the other keeper had only just left too, abruptly dropping everything for the opportunity to move to the States.

Leon had wondered out loud if they would find an easier time there, more opportunity, more of anything at all, and said at the end, “I hope they do.”

When they shored not long after, Merlin was the first out of the boat. Leon didn’t comment -- even if Will gave Merlin a look -- and simply tossed out a rope and directed Merlin to a lone rusted metal stake driven into the sand. The rope was slippery in Merlin’s grasp, the fibers scraping against his palm as he coerced his chilled fingers into securing the knot. He checked it twice before heading back.

Together, he and Will took the supplies to the pulley system. Leon indicated to the stone steps they would use, curving around the side of the island and leading up to the top. The stairs were carved into the black rock, uneven where they couldn’t be forced into shape by tools, and slick with water and algae.

The smell of sea grass, guano, and sand was almost palpable at the foot of the island, thick enough to smother and certainly thick enough to taste when Merlin breathed through his mouth.

Leon talked as they crossed the small distance to the steps. They had to walk slowly and with care because the suction of the sand threatened to yank off their boots.

“The high tide takes the shore.” Leon yelled to be heard over the constant rush of water and the louder calls of birds. There must have been a roost further up and out of reach.

He continued, glancing over his shoulder as they climbed up the steps in single file. “There is a boat kept behind the oil stores. To get it down, you’ll have to use the pulleys. Not impossible, mind, but just not easy. You’ll have to radio for help if you need anything more.”

The wind buffeted hard enough at the top of the island that it was a challenge to stay upright. It yanked and pulled at Merlin’s clothes as if it wanted to drag him to the edge and throw him down. It was oddly muffling too, deafening in the way the ocean and the birds were momentarily drowned out by the rush of wind.

Merlin threw up a hand and squinted through his fingers, disorientated by the lack of sound as he summitted. It took a moment for the ground to register under his boots again, and for the brightness of the sun to reassert itself.

At this height, sitting slightly to the east, the mainland appeared deceptively within reach, nothing more than a stone’s throw away. The staggered rows of white houses clustered on the small peninsula were clear, if a little mournful in the way the long, black windows were turned toward them.

They -- the houses -- stopped at the very edge of the cliff, leading to an abrupt drop into water. They looked that way even though Merlin knew that there was a wall between the two. A solid divide that Merlin had set his hands to the day before, and had leaned over to see the rocks below.

Sitting beyond the concrete slabs and houses, further out and heading away, was a hint of green of farmland. Merlin liked to think he saw the puffy clouds of sheep milling on the fields, but it was too far to really tell.

Now used to the wind, Merlin turned his attention to the lodging and the lighthouse. He tried not to be surprised at the sheer size of it up close, but he couldn’t help the way awe swelled in his stomach.

The lighthouse towered over the island in a column of smooth white stucco so bright that it hurt to look at. Here and there were windows, shining silver in the sunlight, and perched on top was the lantern room, glinting with glass where it wasn’t painted red. Something stirred in the pit of Merlin’s stomach then. It wasn’t excitement this time, and whatever it was built until it bled through his body in a strange and slow unfolding of nerves.

Merlin clenched his hands and abruptly looked down. He was suddenly aware of the different quality of the air. Still salty, but more somehow, as if it had the potential to become something tangible. It was a touch to the back of Merlin’s neck, at the knob of bone there, that trailed up to the tender dip at his hairline.

He jerked away from it and stepped into Will, who nudged him back with a sharp elbow. Merlin murmured an apology, suddenly self conscious. He forced himself to concentrate.

The house that he and Will would live in preceded the lighthouse itself. A small-set cottage of brick and wood that differed little from the kind of houses at Ealdor. The most defining aspect of it was the red door.

“To match the lantern room,” Leon said, with a shrug and a smile, before he pointed out the fenceline he’d recently installed.

“It goes all around,” he said, then lead them to the oil stores behind the lighthouse and showed them where the boat was kept.

Then Leon took them back around and into the house.

It was strange to step foot inside. Though the wind and the sea and the birds were still audible, they were not enough to completely disguise the distinct silence within. It was as if the house itself held its breath around them, the walls standing quietly patient, watching and aware.

Merlin glanced at Will. If he felt anything, either from the house or Merlin’s look, Will didn’t show it, clearly more interested in the interior aspects than anything else.

Leon didn’t seem to notice anything either, smiling when he said, “Let me show you around.”

-

The layout of the lighthouse lodgings meant that stepping into the house was also stepping into the kitchen. The stove and bench were to one side and a table was in the middle. Natural light came in through the windows that were set beside the stove and that bracketing the main entrance door.

Will trailed behind Merlin and Leon as they wandered through the house. Leon pointed out the things they needed to know as they passed them. He also pointed out the quirks of the house, and also the small failings, like the too high gaps beneath the doors.

“Lets out the warm air,” Leon said. “Lets in the cold.”

Will found it strange that Leon made a distinction between quirks and failings, as if the two weren’t one and the same thing. He made a note of each and resolved to address them.

Leon also pointed out his own touches, like the coat hooks by the door and the already mentioned fence outside.

Will watched as Merlin nodded each time, the curls of his hair jumping up and down with the gesture. It was as endearing now as it had been a decade ago, and also, like it did a decade ago, it stirred something in Will’s stomach. He quickly looked away, hands clenched to fists. It was not the right time or the right place. It had _no_ place in this arrangement, whatever truce they had fallen into.

They continued through the house. The sleeping quarters, Leon showed them, were along the right side, opposite the kitchen. There were three rooms in total, set side-by-side: two for the keepers and the last one, the one closest to the lighthouse, for work purposes, kitted with a desk and a bookshelf packed with old record books.

“The radio is new,” Leon said, before he showed them how to use it, sending a message to the coast guard who responded promptly in kind. “You have a direct channel to the coast guard.”

Hearing the crackle of the coast guard’s voice prompted Will to glance at Merlin, who looked delighted -- the smile on his face bright, real -- even if he didn’t try to share it with Will.

The bathroom was a wedge of space crammed beside the record room. Recently added, Leon mentioned, to save them the perils of heeding nature’s call during a storm or late at night.

Will stepped into the small space after Merlin and Leon stepped out, and eyed all the corners.

He checked each room, making note of any rot or mold. He also noted where the walls had shifted, where the skirting had come away or the where the cornices separated. To Will’s eyes, everything was old but well-maintained. The issues he found were small and easily fixed.

Will ran his hand against the door frame of one of the bedrooms, aware of the design of the jamb and how the angles pressed against his palm.

His father had been a builder, good enough to have had a hand in erecting some of the more prestigious buildings in their old town before their move to Ealdor. He used to say that good houses had a feel to them. A solidity. A grounding that was both essential and noticeable, even if one did not have any knowledge on things like foundation and weight bearing walls.

 _People know_ , his father said, _when the structural integrity of a building is compromised. It’s a gut feeling,_ and he’d hold his hand to his stomach when he said it.

It was absurd to claim that a lighthouse that existed on a rock in the middle of the ocean, battered for the better part of two hundred years by wind and water, was not structurally sound. The lighthouse had been built to maintain integrity, to withstand the stress of the elements.

Will checked the cupboards of the kitchen and found the doors were neat on their seams, the hinges well-oiled and brightly polished. Recently replaced, most likely. He wondered if Leon had done it, and figured, _no_ , because then Leon would have mentioned it and Merlin would have nodded. He noted the water boiler, which warmed up the room with its residual heat. A fact that Will was quietly grateful for, being used to the luxury at home.

He went outside and checked the corners of the house for any evidence of sinking. Then, Will returned inside and hurried after Leon and Merlin as they climbed the 268 steps that lead up to the lantern room. The stairwell was narrow. Their footsteps, along with Merlin’s questions and Leon’s responses, echoed against the walls until the sound of it all condensed into a mess of noise.

The lantern room was bright and warm, the heat of the sun collected and retained by the glass.

Leon showed them the lens, how to use it, and Will listened with ambivalent pride as Merlin confirmed and reconfirmed his working and mechanical experience, nodding where he had to.

Will walked a slow circuit of the room. Halfway around, he caught sight of Merlin again. Leon was out of his line of vision, so all that Will could see was the intent way that Merlin looked at him, the furrow at his brow and at his mouth. Will took in a breath to steady himself and looked away to check the light, the railing, the door that opened out to the wire mesh balcony that circled the lantern.

He followed Leon and Merlin back down to the house and stood in the middle of the room as the other two headed back outside.

There was a feeling to the lighthouse. Something in the core of it that was unaligned or lacking in an integral way. Will stood in the room and tried to feel it out. _What was it_ , he wondered. Because whatever it was made the hair on the back of his neck rise, set his teeth on edge. But there had been nothing he had seen, nothing that had been pointed out, nothing that he could put in the form of a question and present to Leon.

Why did it feel this way? What should he do? What would his father do?

The answer was easy: he would check again. Look harder. Comb through the record books for any source or reason for it. If there was a fault -- something missing, something added to prop the lighthouse up in any way, anything -- it would be recorded.

Merlin stepped through the door then, coming in with such unexpected energy that it made Will take a step back. He had to stop his arms from jerking up in his surprise.

“Hey,” Merlin smiled as he said it, eyes bright and blue. “Leon’s heading off before the tide turns. You coming to say goodbye?”

Will stared at him, at the brightness of his face and at his smile. He understood that it wasn’t directed at him. Not really. Merlin hadn’t smiled at him like that for years. He had barely looked at him even though they lived within the same village.

Will did not want to say goodbye to Leon. He was not particularly interested in seeing him.

“Sure,” Will said.

 _Be better_ , he told himself, the words firm, and he followed Merlin out.

-

Merlin woke up when Will roused to tend to the light. He wasn’t even sure why he had, seeing as they had separate rooms, and yet the soft sound of movement and the muted flare of candlelight seeping under the door had woken him. Merlin stared at the ceiling overhead and listened intently, relaxing when Will moved again, his heavy tread heading towards the lighthouse door before they faded altogether once he stepped over the threshold. It was only then that Merlin felt light enough to breathe.

Sleep didn’t return to him, however, abandoning Merlin to leave him staring at the low ceiling.

Although the exterior of the house was built with brick, the walls, the bracing, and the furniture were all made of wood. It reminded Merlin of his home in Ealdor. Not in a physical sense. Home there was a small thing that his grandfather had built, and that his father had added rooms to as necessary. A room for Merlin when he had come along. Another for his mother’s sewing when a sibling failed to eventuate.

The house itself was tucked away against the encroaching forest, the full view of it hidden by thick bushes and a large elm tree. People described it all as charming, if charming was a thing that included walls that seemed to list, and crochet throws scattered over anything still enough.

So, no, the house here didn’t physically resemble his own home growing up. It was more the feeling of it.

Merlin groped for a way to explain it to himself, to put into words why it felt like home. His thoughts drifted back to earlier that day, when he had stood on the island and been aware of that inexplicable something that had touched him. That something had been there as Leon had guided them through the house, but by then Merlin had taken it in stride, had become used to its presence. At some point in his life, hadn’t he been accustomed to those things?

Merlin rolled on his side, the sheets whispering against his skin as he tucked his hands between the pillow and his cheek as he stared at the wall. There was a gulf between the two points -- him and the wall -- the shadows and the shaft of moonlight that spilled in created a greater distance than existed. Without thinking, Merlin shifted to reach out a hand.

His shadow was hard and black against the pane of white light. It looked small and insignificant.

It looked like he was reaching out.

It looked like he was waiting for something to reach back.

He snatched back his hand when the house shifted around him.

“The pressure,” Will had explained earlier, when they had sat at the table for dinner and listened to the groan and sigh of the walls.

“From the wind. Or when the foundation underneath shifts,” Will had continued, speaking more to his soup than to Merlin’s face, as if the act of dunking bread into his bowl required most if not all of his concentration.

“Lots of things can make a house shift,” Will had said, talking as if Merlin wouldn't know, as if the walls in the house Merlin grew up in didn't shift and whisper the same way.

Merlin on his back. He didn’t like sleeping on his side with his head pressed against the pillow. He was aware of his heartbeat then, and he had spent countless nights as a child listening to it, scared of everything that it implied, aware of how fragile it was when he was surrounded by the dark.

The walls sighed again. There was something chastising about it this time, like they were aware of Merlin’s thoughts and thought them childish.

 _She’s lonely_ , Leon had said.

Merlin remembered Leon’s face when he had said it, the way he had glanced back to the lighthouse.

Was this it? Was this the loneliness that Leon referred to? To lie here in the dark of the lighthouse, surrounded by space, by the ocean, lying here with the acute knowledge that some unnameable thing may also exist in this same space?

This odd feeling of familiarity. Did Leon know this, too?

 _She’s lonely_ , Leon had said. _I’ll miss her. I would have stayed, but..._

Merlin had watched Leon as he rowed back to the mainland, a mite on the back of the water, the burnished gold of Leon’s hair bright against the blue. He remembered that now and thought, _no, no, he does not know_.

-

“Did you know,” Will said on their third morning.

Merlin opened the cupboard and pulled out a bowl and closed the door. He crossed the kitchen to the stove and ladled the porridge Will had warmed there, and then puttered back across for cutlery. There, he paused and stared at the cupboard overhead, his hand already reaching out to close it.

 _Hadn’t he_ … _?_

Merlin shook his head and shut it. He found a spoon and headed to the table, where he sat hunched over his bowl of porridge. Steam buffeted his face, though it did little more than make the cold ache more like a bruise than it did warm him. He pulled his sleeves over his hands, so it looked like the spoon came from the empty socket of his right sleeve.

“Did you know,” Will said again. “That this lighthouse switched to electric in 1875?”

Will had in in his hands a book with a dark red cloth cover. It was the same book that they had been issued to fill in all their notes and records. Merlin saw the wear on the covers, water-stained and somewhat battered, and he bent his head in an effort to find a date mark.

There was a small thrill when he saw it -- 1874/75 -- the idea of a different time and a different place held between the pages was fascinating to him.

Will leaned against the benchtop with the book up and an apple in his other hand. He looked over the top of the book to Merlin with an eyebrow raised.

“Yeah?” Merlin said belatedly.

“Yeah, but then they realised the cost of it and changed back to oil.”

Merlin snorted as he ate mouthful of porridge, wincing when it scalded him. He took a hurried sip of the water and caught sight of the window as he did. From where he sat, all Merlin saw was blue.

He looked away and back again, expecting to see something else. A wedge of the island, maybe. Seabirds. He certainly heard them. But still it was just blue, endless blue, as if nothing else existed but the lighthouse and the sky outside.

Will crunched on the apple, the sound oddly sharp in the small space, seemingly intentional, and it pulled Merlin’s attention back.

“Anything else interesting?” Merlin asked.

Will turned a page with his thumb. “It’s mostly observations.”

“Okay,” Merlin said.

There was a pause then, the silence filled by the ocean, and the birds, and Will chewing, until Merlin asked, “Have you checked the radio?”

“Yes,” Will said. “I sent a message this morning to the coast guard to test it out.”

And that was that.

Merlin cleaned up and then stepped out of the house, shutting the door behind him. The sunlight seeped through the thin layer of clouds overhead, and came down weak and watery. He wedged his hands under his armpits and tried not to shiver at the abrupt change in temperature, already missing the heat of the kitchen.

The cold, salty wind coming over the water stung. It drilled through his coat and the layers of clothes underneath as if it were honed to skin. Merlin tugged up his collar and shoved his hands in his pockets. He should have known better than to have left without gloves, and his mind presented him with the image of his pair where he had left them -- flung haphazardly on his bed. Merlin huffed out a frustrated breath and entertained returning to fetch them before dismissing it. Next time.

Merlin headed to the oil stores, following the curve of the lighthouse. The mainland slowly disappeared from view as he walked, taking with it houses and their black windows and also the scatter of rocks at the base of the cliff-face. Now there was only water and the sky around him, and it brought with it a true sense of isolation instead of the hint of it framed by the window. Merlin couldn’t help but to stop and stare, tempted by the endless stretch of ocean in front of him.

A loud cry of a sea bird startled Merlin back, though it took a moment longer before he recalled what he was meant to be doing. Glad that no one was around to watch, Merlin drew in a steadying breath and hurried along.

The oil was kept in a small timber bunker behind the lighthouse. Inside, there were several barrels for the flame, along with the more bulkier tools necessary for general upkeep. The bunker had a small window built into it, facing outwards to the sun, but even with wedge of light it provided, the room was shadowed and cool.

Merlin unhooked the clipboard on the wall there and read the notes, angling the clipboard to catch the sun outside. Leon would have been the last person who had written in the log, and his hand was small and fine, his words ending with little upticks. Merlin very carefully filled in the date in the first entry below Leon’s with the pen provided.  

Mineral oil, by nature, had no smell to it. But to Merlin, the room smelt vaguely sweet, a little like almonds. It was especially obvious because, by then, he was used to smelling salt wherever he went. Merlin hesitated before he made a note on the clipboard, then he set about checking the number of barrels and their contents for leaks.

A loud bang made the clipboard jump from his hands. Merlin whipped around and stared.

“What--”

The question died on his lips.

Everything in the room seemed to stand in a preternatural silence. That feeling, again, of something waiting. Of something trailing touches at the nape of his neck, lifting hairs down his arms, down his legs. The quiet and the cold sharpening around him so that it was a knife-edge set against his skin--

_Who--_

The question had barely formed in his head when the room eased itself into its previous normality.

Merlin pressed a hand against his chest, against his thundering heart. His blood rushed against his ears. The ground felt unsteady beneath him and he leaned against a barrel, let it take his weight as he scrapped his nerves together.

The door had slammed shut.

The answer was dizzying in its simplicity.

He had left the door open a degree and the wind had slammed it shut.

A burst of laughter escaped him then, but Merlin quickly tamped it down, not liking how his nerves made it sound -- sharper, rougher, not at all like him. Merlin ducked his head, his face hot.

Merlin worked through the last of the checklist. He used the presence of Leon’s steady hand to remind himself that other people had completed this exact task countless times over, and chances were that they had all experienced the same incident at least once. There was no reason he should rush just because he had a bit of a fright. Merlin signed off the log. He didn’t replace it immediately though. Instead he stood there and stared at the shape of his signature on the paper until it blurred into an unrecognisable thing.

It was the gulls that brought him back again. Their shrill calls stirring his thoughts from wherever they had disappeared to. Merlin shook his head, replaced the log, and exited the bunker. His hand lingered on the doorknob, the surface cool against his palm, and he stood there until he bit his lip and forced himself to let go.

-

Merlin found Will tending to the lens -- soaping down the glass cage around it and wiping it clean. He had pulled off his suspenders and pushed his shirt sleeves to the elbow where the material bunched up, soaked through.

“Your sleeves are wet,” Merlin said, absently rubbing his palms.

He had stumbled on the stairs coming up, and he’d caught himself from falling, if just, but managed to graze his hands for the effort.

Will shot him a narrow look and rolled his eyes. It took a second to register the gesture for what it apparently was: a joke, not a jibe. But still, it stung.

Merlin ignored the heat of his face and grabbed another rag. He stepped around to the other side of the lens and started to clean. From where he stood, Will’s silhouette was a dark, shifting ripple through the layers of glass.  

They worked in relative silence. The squall of cloth against glass keeping them company, along with the near-constant moan of the wind only broken by bird calls. If Merlin concentrated, he could also hear the distant, intermittent crash of the waves.

It was soothing and familiar, and Merlin found his thoughts drifting towards his childhood before he even realised, reliving memories of hunting for shells at Ealdor beach, washing them out in the foamy waves. _Hold it up to your ear,_ his mother would say. _Can you hear the waves?_

“Was that you earlier? Making that noise?” Will asked, abruptly bringing Merlin back to the present where his hands stung from the cold water, where his arms ached from reaching up, and where his head spun from tilting back.

The stilted way Will said it suggested that he had been wanting to ask for a while. Merlin took a moment to dump his rag in the water and wring it out, ignoring the pangs of discomfort from his raw palms.

“Yes,” Merlin said, finally. “I tripped on the stairs. Sorry.”

The ripple of Will’s reflection had stilled at some point, his arm still drawn up. Will slid the rag back down, and then dropped it in the bucket by his feet where it smacked against the water.

“Okay,” Will said. “It's fine.”

-

Will dumped a handful of chopped carrots into the stew and gave it a stir. It bubbled at him and he turned down the heat and covered the pot with a lid. He glanced outside as he wiped his hands on the towel, pausing when he caught sight of Merlin. Merlin was standing at the fenceline, his back to Will as he looked to the mainland.

The sun that day came down bright and hard. It turned Merlin’s hair from dark brown to burnished gold. Will had to squint whenever he looked out, whenever he cast another glance to Merlin, still standing there. He traced the line of Merlin’s shoulders in short fragments, noting where the fabric of the oil coat sat tight and how it pulled in at the waist.

Will looked away and back again when Merlin moved, when he snapped to sharp attention and quickly strode out of view. Will craned his neck to follow Merlin’s path, confused by his abrupt turnabout, but lost sight when Merlin disappeared around the corner.

Guilt stirred in the pit of his stomach though he tried to block it out. It was still so confusing. Was he still angry at Merlin, or wasn’t he? Had he moved on, or hadn’t he? Every time he found a solid answer, or means by which he could interact with Merlin, something would happen that would make him question it. Will recalled the other day, when Merlin had turned up to help clean the lantern, and how only a minute before the sound of glass exploding had almost toppled him off his stool.

“Was that you earlier.” His heart had been in his throat when he’d asked, and a distant part of him was surprised at the steadiness of his voice. “Making that noise.”

“Yes.” Merlin had said, after a pause. “I tripped on the stairs. Sorry.”

Merlin tripped. He tripped. Merlin was notoriously clumsy, always spilling his ink in school and cracking his slate board.

Will took a draw of air, savoured the smell and warmth of the stew simmering on the stove. Closing his eyes, it was easy to think he was back home in Ealdor instead of contained in a small house with Merlin.

He wished he could pin down his feelings. He wished Merlin had said no when Will had asked if he was still looking for work. Will would have also lost this opportunity, but maybe if--

The door opened with a bang and Will jumped. Cold air blasted into the kitchen and smothered out the heat.

Will held his temper, concentrating on the way Merlin had stood at the fenceline earlier -- as if he only managed to hold himself around something quietly aching inside. _Be better,_ Will thought. He took a steadying breath, told his heart to calm.

“You’re not missing land already,” Will said as Merlin shut the door. “Sorry, mate, but the next supply drop is two weeks away and--”

Will had turned, but the grin and what little good humour he’d gathered together faded at the sight of the empty kitchen.

Behind him the stew bubbled, the sound muffled by the lid. Absently, Will wiped his hands on the seat of his trousers, taking care to move slow in case moving fast would jolt some unrealised thing into reality.

The door opened again, the person on the other side eager to get in--

“Not so loud,” Will snapped.

Merlin froze at the doorway with one hand wrapped around the knob and a smile quickly fading from his face. His cheeks and the tip of his nose were red from the cold, his dark hair ruffled from the wind. The look suited him. He looked happy.

“Sorry,” Merlin said, and Will turned back to the stew.

 _Be better_ , Will thought as he fumbled off the pot lid. He had forgotten the towel, left it in a heap by the sink at some point, and so the lid burned his fingers. He jerked his hand away.

 _Be better,_ Will thought. _He doesn’t do that anymore. You’re tired and seeing things. We both need this job. He’s doing you a favour. You owe him._

“No, it’s fine,” Will said, keeping his back to Merlin, who had yet to move.

Will’s entire awareness was attuned to Merlin even has he stirred the stew. It was as if Merlin stood only step behind him, the heat and weight of him bearing down against Will. Will’s heart beat hard in his chest and his fingers stung from the burn, making him clumsy as he stirred and stirred, the liquid sloshing up the sides of the pot.

Across the room, Merlin shut the door with a quiet click of the lock. Will didn’t turn to acknowledge him, but he could see the slow and even way Merlin moved in his mind’s eye. He could feel the questioning, wary look Merlin regarded him with as he made his way to his bedroom.

It annoyed him. It was just like Merlin to do that. To accommodate him. That was what he did, right? Will kept this thoughts there, let himself tend to the burn of anger and annoyance in his stomach as he listened to the press of Merlin’s boots on the floor, his familiar gait. This being -- _person_ \-- that existed in a physical, tangible sense, rooted in the same reality Will was.

It was only at the sound of Merlin’s door snapping shut that Will could breathe. His shoulders unlocked and he released the stirring spoon, the momentum making it circle around once more before it settled against the pot.

Will’s hand tightened on the edge of the stove where it was hot from the flame, and he kept it there until he couldn’t and he snatched his hand away with a hiss. Will curled his hand against his stomach, hair on end at the pain that pulsed through his nerves. _Be better, be better, be better._

-

Will looked outside the kitchen when he said it that first time, to the gray drizzle and the low lying fog. Merlin set his teeth together and stared at the back of Will’s head.

“Do you think they’ve forgotten us,” Will said again.

A pause and then, “Or do you think they’ve decommissioned the lighthouse and can’t be arsed letting us know. Couple of boys from the country no one has to pay wages to anymore. No big loss.”

“They’ll come,” Merlin said eventually. “When the fog clears.”

“Tide’s going to turn soon.”

“They’ll come.”

“You know that this is the first time in maybe fifty years they didn’t have a rotation of three men,” Will didn’t bother looking at Merlin to say it. “Last time it was only one. You know what his name was, yeah? Arthur? As in--”

Will turned then and gestured around him in short, sharp movements.

Merlin stared blankly, failing to find any sense in the way Will kept jerking his hands.

Will’s expression tightened and he turned his back to him to look out the window again, searching through the fog for any clearance, for a sign of any sort. Anything that Merlin knew he’d shackle his hope to. Will never gave hope blindly. Will never trusted something that he couldn’t see or understand. It was a fact that Merlin knew intimately, enough so that it made something akin to smugness twist in his gut to know that Will still struggled with it.

Will gave up looking after a while, cursing rough under his breath as he pushed off the window sill and headed to the sleeping quarters.

The air was heavy with Will’s frustration, and it lingered over the course of the day. It collected in the kitchen and the living space, cluttering up at the stove and the sink, before it bled into the other rooms.

It had moved into the lighthouse as well, must have climbed the steps when Merlin wasn’t looking, so that when it was Merlin’s turn to tend to the light that night, he stood in the lantern room and felt the press of Will’s frustration there, too. Merlin steeled himself against it. He set his shoulders and straightened his spine, refusing to have Will have the final say.

Merlin turned his focus outwards, away from it all. He set his concentration on the task at hand -- checking the oil and the light, making notes and any other observations. It was quick and methodical. He saved the ocean for last, wanting to shake off the last vestiges of Will’s lingering frustrations before he turned his attention to it, not wanting Will to sully what he felt for the sea.

The ocean was a shifting surface of black beneath the night sky. Will had never liked it as much as Merlin did, he didn’t seem to see that the night could be a comfort, the darkness a curiosity as much as it saw it to be distrusted as a whole. There were times when Merlin itched to touch the dark, to turn it over in his hands, and discover what lived within it.

Of course, it was never going to be pure darkness in the lighthouse. Merlin stood in the lantern room aware of the heat and the steady burn of the lamp at his back. The fire hissed and flickered, fed by the oil, and the glass lenses focused and directed it across the ocean in a single reaching beam that diffused over the waves. There, it set the whitecaps aglow so that it looked as if the sea itself burned.

Eyes stinging with missed sleep and any previous mood soothed, Merlin returned to the last set of observations.

The distant rush of waves lulled him as he wrote, turning his thoughts to his bed downstairs. Merlin had to smother a yawn and rub his eyes. It was as if something the ocean breathed with him -- a steady in-and-out that matched his breath, that suggested a greater and far more complex beast living just below the surface...

Merlin froze, suddenly awake, suddenly aware of the space he took up in the room, of the book he held, how his boots were firm on the floor. Everything about his senses were tuned to a sharp point where they had been hazy before.

The seconds ticked over in the relative silence, counted by the rapid beating of his heart. Merlin willed it quiet. He held his breath to listen, straining his attention beyond the rush of water.

And then, there.

A bell. A _bell_.

Panic reared to life in Merlin’s chest, and he flung his clipboard aside to check the light, ensuring that its aim was true, that it hadn’t faltered in its sweep across the water; that the ship could see and steer clear of the rocky outcrops that fringed and dotted the bay. He peered through the glass walls, dragging his attention over the water, looking past the reflection of the light and his own form, his face reflected back at him, frowning, teeth worrying his lip as he searched.

 _Where are you_.

The lights from any shipping vessel would have been visible by now. If he heard a ship’s bell, surely he would see some indication of it, the pinprick of lights on the water, a shadow, anything. The walls were chilly under his fingers and Merlin’s breath fogged up the glass, and he swiped the condensation away, impatient, trying to see--

The bell continued to ring as he fumbled around for the narrow balcony door, haste making him clumsy as he unlocked it and stepped out.

Wind whipped up the length of the lighthouse with such unexpected force that Merlin grabbed the railing to hold on. The bar was a cold shock against his palms, making him gasp, goosebumps exploding up his arms and raising the hairs at his neck. His boots slid against the metal mesh flooring. They were oddly wet underfoot, and the force of the wind through the gaps was disorientating, as if he stumbled over gravel and rocks instead of something firm and solid.

Merlin steadied himself and held on. He did not look down through the black holes under him. He did not notice the way the colour of it seemed endless. Instead, he squinted across the water, eyes stinging in the wind and from the way his hair whipped across his face.

The light cleaved across the ocean where it seemed to break it apart somehow, the beam like a knife more than anything else, oddly dangerous.

Merlin searched for the ship, his stomach pressed against the railing where the cold seeped through all the layers of his clothes with such a sharpness that it was as if he touched it to bare skin. He listened through the wind.

“Come on,” he muttered. “Come on, come on, come on. Where are you.”

His heart thud hard in his ears. He barely breathed in case it hindered his senses in some way. The smell of salt and rust where he stood was strong enough that he could taste it, and it tasted a little like blood.

Through it all he could still hear the bell. Merlin thought that it would be closer now that he stood outside, but still it came from some unspecified distance.

But the light slid over nothing but empty water, and the bell kept on ringing until it folded itself away into the corners of the night.

-

Gwaine was a local resident who had volunteered to drop off supplies. Merlin and Will had met him briefly during their first day, when he had come along with Leon to help drop off the initial supplies. Merlin remembered him in a vague sense, too distracted then to have noticed more than the rough beard on his face and the length of his hair, the ends brushing his shoulders.

Merlin felt badly for not paying enough attention because Gwaine rowed in the next day with a gusto and cheer that seemed to lift the curtain of melancholy off the island. His mother would have described Gwaine as bellwether. She would have still called him that despite the sickly vegetables he brought, and the excess of pickled onions that Merlin knew would sit at the back of the pantry. Merlin hurriedly took them off Gwaine’s hands, along with the extra store of oil and a handful of letters.

“Sorry, lads,” Gwaine said, pointing to the box of vegetables. He grinned, wry, “Best we could do considering the circumstances. They’re talking about closing the place down until the worst of it is over. It’s not like they can afford to bring the ships in anyway.”

Will passed a look at Merlin then, sharp and accusing. Merlin knew Will would have taken Gwaine’s words as a confirmation for the eventual closure of the lighthouse, but Merlin was still worn from Will’s frustration and anger, so he let the look fall against him without acknowledgement.

“Cheers,” Merlin said instead, setting the last of boxes down by his feet where they sunk in the slushy sand.

Merlin took a breath and chanced a glance at Will, who was busy taking stock of their items. Then he turned back to Gwaine and asked, “You want a drink before you go?”

Gwaine made a show of turning the question over in his head before he laughed. Merlin stared outright when Gwaine squatted down, felt his eyebrows climb on his forehead as Gwaine pawed under the seat of the rowboat, swearing, before he sat back with a bottle in hand. His grin was spectacular as he held it aloft, and Merlin couldn’t help the laugh that escaped him.

“Consider this an apology for being late,” Gwaine said when they were all seated around the small dining table of the lighthouse a little later. “The better half didn’t want me to get lost in the fog. I wouldn’t have--” Gwaine continued as he poured them all a nip in glasses.

He screwed the lid back on and set the whiskey to the middle of the table in a clear indication of the ownership being transferred to Merlin.

“Gotten lost, I mean. You feel this place. There’s a feel to it. I could be set in the water half a country away with a blindfold on and--” Gwaine lifted a hand set flat in the air and mimed it crashing into something solid. “Find it.”

Then he polished off his drink and coughed, pressing a hand to his chest. “Well, that’s embarrassing.”

Merlin had frozen in his seat, his glass lifted halfway to his mouth. The smell of alcohol was sharp and strong, but it barely registered.

“What do you mean?” Merlin heard Will ask.

Will had tried to make the question less of a demand, but the words still came out hard and biting. Merlin could almost see Will’s expression, the wildness of his eyes whenever something like this was presented to him. His instinct was to interject, to steer the subject elsewhere. But then the bell from the previous night shifted to the forefront of his mind, and whatever words that had risen quickly faded away.

The silence that had descended felt delicate and glass-like. And it was only because Merlin’s focus had yet to slide from Gwaine’s face that he saw the flicker of Gwaine’s expression before he grinned.

“Oh,” he said, gesturing around them. “She doesn’t speak to you, too?”

“Can’t say she has,” Will said.

Merlin volunteered to see Gwaine off not long after. Half out of politeness, to save them all from the way Will had disengaged to the point of rudeness, and half because there was a part inside him that ached to ask.

 _A feel to this place_.

Merlin imagined himself asking Gwaine, _Tell me what you feel_. And he saw himself reach out to touch Gwaine’s arm, _Was it like this_?

But Will had come too, despite Merlin’s subtle protests.

“He’s our guest,” Will had insisted, eyes sharp on Merlin in a way that made Merlin aware that Will understood his intent.

Will had taken his place behind Merlin as they carefully navigated the stone steps down to the foot of the small island. Merlin was aware of the exact weight of Will’s attention on his back, so he buried the questions, let them burn inside him.

Merlin pinned a smile in place as he watched Gwaine step back into the boat, which rocked on the inch of water that crept its way towards the rocks.

Hair stuck to Gwaine’s stubbled cheeks, and he brushed the strands away with a hand.

“Cheers, lads,” he said. “Keep your chin up. I’ll see you again in another two weeks with something else to tide you over.”

Merlin thanked him, and Gwaine grinned at him, and then he looked at him in a way that turned sent a quiver of excitement through Merlin.

“Next time,” Gwaine said.

Merlin nodded as he tried to ignore the little sparks of excitement through his body at Gwaine’s words, the suggestion that this man understood the things that Merlin was hesitant to put a name to. Merlin did not to look at Will as Gwaine pushed off the shore and into the water, taking his answers with him, and he watched with his earlier excitement drawing heavy, turning sour, as Gwaine became small and indistinct. The image pulled at him and Merlin took a stumbling step forward into the surf, water sloshing at his boots.

“Merlin,” Will said, the word sharp.

Merlin started to turn back, but he stopped.

Far to his left, a black formless shape stood on the water.

It listed heavily on its side, torn open at the hull.

Merlin staggered toward it, his heart thudding in his chest as cold sluiced through his body. Water kicked up around him as he ran into the water, boots skidding over rocks and sand.

“Merlin--”

His trousers were soaked to his thighs. The water so cold that it stung where it wasn’t numb.

Oh, god, he could see people.

There were people, their forms rigid in the surf, bobbing with the rush of the tide, lost between the shards of wood and floating crates.

Merlin’s thoughts came to him in fragments. Where was Gwaine? Why didn’t he see this? How far away? Could he swim? Why wasn’t Will doing anything?

He was up to his waist in water, the cold so aching, so overwhelming drowned out everything else.

Where was Will?

_Help them._

Something grabbed him. The grip strong and sure, fingers digging in through the material of Merlin’s oil coat hard enough to startle a breath from him. Merlin jerked his arm back. He tried to rip free, but Will held on. Merlin twisted around to him, anger and frustration and confusion knotted in his gut.

“There’s a _ship_ ,” he yelled, his voice made insubstantial from the cold still lacing through him. A distant part of him realised he was shivering, and Merlin clenched his hands tight, dug his nails into his palms even if he couldn’t feel it. “Can’t you see?”

Will’s face was fury barely restrained. His mouth was white, his eyes bright and wild, focused on Merlin until they slid over Merlin’s shoulder. Will’s hand spasmed where he held him, loosening enough and Merlin wrenched himself free.

Merlin whipped back to the ship, already pulling himself through the water, pushing past the cold that burned through him, any doubting thoughts -- only to stare at the empty bay.

He stopped, breathing hard. He stood there and stared as the tide continued in its gentle rush around him. That long familiar in-and-out rhythm that Merlin always thought he understood, only now it confused him.

The gulls cawed overhead, their voices shrill. They were high enough and numerous enough that it sounded like laughter over the dull crash of waves on the mainland beach. Merlin lifted his shaking hands to cover his ears.

When he was young, his mother had told him that the sea was in his blood.

Growing up, she had told him stories about mermaids and sirens, about selkies and the kraken. Some of the stories had scared him, but then he’d tell himself -- remind himself -- the sea was in his blood, so all those things were also in his blood.

They were a part of him, and so there was no reason to be afraid of anything he could see in the water.

Merlin would continue to believe this even when he was older, when he had stood on the shore of Ealdor beach not long after his father had left for the Great War.

His mother had taken them to the beach, aiming for normality in the face of conflict, while also trying to distract him from talk of signing up. _You can’t_ , she’d say, always sounding like she was a step away from crying. _You’re only ten, Merlin_.

He had stood there with the tide pulling at his submerged ankles.

 _Come in_ , the water had said. _Come find us._

He had walked into the water, knee-deep and then waist-deep. The water continuing to draw him in, the chill of it at home in his bones, the sand soft under his toes, and the smell of salt strong enough to taste. He walked until he was swallowed up, head slipping under the surface.

Someone had grabbed him and pulled him out. He remembered snatches of the pale blue sky, and the darker blue of the benign ocean, the whitecaps gleaming under the sun. And then there was mother’s face, wet above his as he lay on the dry sand.

“Not you, too,” she had said, crying, cupping his cheeks and swiping her thumbs over his eyes.

He had wanted to touch her, but his hand was too heavy.

 _I just wanted to help._ The words there, but inaccessible.

Will had been the one who had pulled him out. A detail that Merlin had forgotten until Will had turned up at his house a handful of days later.

Merlin had still been resigned to bed by his mother and the village physician, bored out of his mind and itching to leave, the idea of climbing out the window and escaping through the hedges more appealing by the minute.

“There was something in the water,” Merlin had told him.

“There wasn’t,” Will had said.

His face was pale as he said it, his eyes intent. Merlin had looked down and saw how Will’s hands were fists by his side.

“There wasn’t,” Will insisted.

But there was. There had been faces at the bottom of the ocean there, white hands reaching out to him, imploring. _Save us._

It was that all over again. Merlin dropped his hands from his head and licked his lips where salt water beaded, the taste of it strong and unpleasant. He was aware of the draw of his breath, and how rough it felt through his nose and down his throat. Merlin tried to keep the words down, he did, but they came anyway as he glanced back to Will.

“There’s something--”

“There isn’t,” Will said.

Will’s face was tight and controlled. His mouth set, a hard white line on his too-pale face, and when Merlin dropped his gaze from Will’s face, he saw that his hands were clenched tight by his sides.

 

**1870**

Arthur opened the cupboard and viewed the paltry set of jars inside, spears of red and green chili and bulbs of onions suspended in murky brine water. It was an odd reflection, he found. The same stasis he felt in the slowly passing days, as if time didn’t pass at all. Not really, not in a way that Arthur was familiar with, because time to him revolved around an artificial glass sun that he cast through the black night.

A bang from another room startled him, breaking through the melancholy of his thoughts. His hand tightened on the knob of the cupboard as he stared towards the direction of the sound.

The moment sat suspended around him. Arthur didn’t dare breathe as he stared at the door of the room beside his. It was as if something there was waiting, or considering him in turn.

Then the sound continued -- a rhythmic banging that, after a moment, became recognisable as footsteps. Goosebumps broke over Arthur’s body, starting from his head and rushing down. The footsteps continued, moving to the bridging room between the house and the lighthouse proper. A hurried gait, as if whatever it was made a break for the lantern.

He jolted into action, abandoning the open cupboard door in chase.

Stepping out of the house and into the lighthouse meant immediately stepping foot onto the spiral staircase that lead up to the lamp. The stairs and walls were concrete. There were no landings, or half-landings, and there was nothing on the walls save for a small window at each turn.

There was nothing of value here, nothing that someone would encourage someone to break into an isolated lighthouse for, but the footsteps echoed through the staircase, the sound of it folding over and over itself, so that it became an infinite thing: footsteps climbing, still climbing, step after step, until they faded away, presumably reaching the top.

Arthur set his jaw and breathed hard, taking care not to notice the flutter of nerves in chest.

It was the wind.

It was his mind.

Arthur forced that particular thought aside, not wanting to compare what it was to the way his father heard things, too. Arthur had assumed it was his father’s age. He had blamed his father’s sickness.

More than once Arthur had burst into his father’s room, to his father’s hoarse yelling, and had found him fighting to get away, eyes pinned to the end of his bed.

“I’m sorry,” his father had said. “I’m sorry. _Tell her I’m sorry_.”

His words had been desperate, and he had grasped at Arthur when he moved close enough to grab.

“Who’s there?” Arthur voice echoed up the stairs.

Silence answered.

The light from a window just outside his line of vision caught the motes of dust where they floated undisturbed in the still air. Arthur stared long and hard, until the light and the dust blurred into the whitewashed walls.

There was no one here.

His mind was playing tricks on him again, taking the shadows and all the normal, expected noises out of context and turning them into something else. He could hear the birds outside now. The trill of the arctic terns, and the low mellow calls from the skuas.

Arthur turned back to the house and thought, very pointedly, _I’m going to have something to eat_.

During the earlier days in control of the lighthouse, he used to say things out loud just to hear someone speak, but the sound of his voice breaking the silence these days seemed wrong somehow. As though it were out of place. Or maybe _he_ was, it was difficult to really tell, and Arthur pushed it aside and thought again, _I’m going to have something to eat._

He entered the kitchen and went to the cupboard with the chillies and the onions that floated in their brine, and found it closed. Arthur stared at the door and opened it again thinking, _I’m going to have something to eat._

-

The lights in the small house struggled against the suffocating night. Darkness collected in the corners, and sat there, brooding.

Arthur sat down at the desk of the record room and took note of the time. In four hours he would have to check the light again.

He could sleep. Sleeping was the easiest way to pass the disjointed nights, of having to make the journey to the lamp room every four hours until dawn broke anew. But he was too restless, too aware of the lack of everything around him to want to sleep.

Arthur considered the record book, turning the pages open to the succession of dates, and the weather and tide notices, and other observations in his hand. November through to December, page after page of his exaggerated descenders sweeping across the top of the words below in a flagrant disregard for legibility.

 _Arthur_ and then _Arthur_ , and then _Arthur_ embedded on page after page. No one but him. He slammed the book shut and leaned forward on his desk with hands fisted in his hair until his heart stopped stuttering in his chest and the threat of nausea faded from the back of his throat.

When his sense of reality returned, Arthur pushed the record book away and pulled out a clean page from his drawer. He took his fountain pen, setting the cap to the side with a muted click.

It took a while until his hand was steady enough to write.

 _Dearest Morgana,_ and he stopped there to stare at her name.

Then he continued:

_I hope this letter finds you well. In regards to your previous correspondence, the conditions are acceptable and I’m fine, accordingly. There is enough here to do that I don’t notice the silence. Percival will be attending to me soon with another supply drop, and I shall give him this letter then. It may be the last visit until winter settles and I will be glad to see his face --_

He had to stop there, pen gripped tight in his hand, the paper in front of him fading to an indistinct void of white against the desk.

The cold crept through his clothes then. It settled in his lungs so each draw of breath was hard and metallic.

 _I will be glad to see his face,_ he had written _._

Arthur set the pen to the page and forced himself to continue, the nib scratching hard against the paper, tearing the thin fibres.

\-- _and converse with him a final time before the winter cuts me off._

_I hope there is enough food to last, and that he brings another oil skin as I’ve torn the sleeve of this one._

_Morgana, I have watched the winter come across the ocean, it’s so thick and dark. A curtain that is slowly being drawn shut, and it comes closer every day. With time, it will reach the mainland, and I hope the estate gardens don’t suffer for it, please take care of the cabbage crop because I want to have some when I return in the new year, when Elyan relieves me. I heard that he will have another keeper with him for his stint, is that correct? Please advise._

_Please give my regards to our father and my well wishes to Guinevere._

Arthur paused and stared at the shape of her name. He tried not to react to the presence of it, though he could not help the hard press of his mouth or the aching clench of his heart. He had not expected to write it. He had tried to avoid thinking about the matter after all was said and done, but her name was there now, so he may as well leave it.

And Arthur did mean it. He did. He wished her well. In spite of the circumstances, Arthur could not find it in him to be angry, disinclined to the emotion after seeing it too often in his father. There was still a part of him that hurt, shadowed by a sense of abandonment that he couldn’t help but to liken to how his mother had died during childbirth and left him.

How melodramatic. How woeful. How childish it was to think like that, as if the two incidents were comparable. Arthur exhaled a breath and, before he could write anything more, he finished the letter and sealed it shut.

Arthur checked the time and peered out the window. The fog had lingered for days, cloaking the island in soft grey cloud that never so much dispersed as it did change viscosity, showing Arthur nothing more than a glimpse of sky and the ocean here and there.

He left the window, tended to the fireplace, and then slid into his coat. He put on his gloves, put his boots on at the door, and turned to survey the room behind him in case he had left something behind. Then he opened the door and stepped out. The cold had a sharpness and intent to it. It hurt to breathe, the sensation of air like quicksilver through his nose and mouth, that bloomed into his lungs.

With his shoulders hunched, Arthur crossed the small space between the lighthouse and the edge of the cliff. He was mindful of the fog, relying more on familiarity and the growing volume of sea noise as he edged his way forward. The island had a fence surrounding the perimeter, but it was a flimsy, insubstantial thing still missing posts from the last storm. Arthur found it and set his hands to the worn, splintered surface of the top rail.

Peering down, he could not see the ocean. He could hear it, and he felt the fine mist of air and seawater pushed upward by the surf, but he couldn’t see. Not that he needed to. Even in his dreams, Arthur could not escape the island. Sometimes he wondered if he would ever stop seeing the way the water churned against the jagged black rocks below.

The supply drop -- Percival -- would have to navigate between the rocks when he came again in the next few days. In summer, the water was calm enough to allow the journey with a minimal fuss, at least for a seasoned rower. But winter was settling in and the water was choppy and high. Temperamental. There was something malicious about it, Arthur found, something deceitful about the waves.

Arthur squinted across the empty space beyond Avalon Island, searching for the small jut of mainland that he knew still existed, even if there was no sign of it. _I will be glad to see his face_ , he thought. Except that the fog had thickened to the same kind of pea soup quality that blanketed London, thick and dark, smothering. He was lucky to see his own hands.

They wouldn’t send a rower through it. It was too much of a risk. Arthur’s grip tightened against the fence and he leaned forward into the thick salty air. Below him the water crashed on the rocks. The tide would turn soon, and the water would climb up like it wanted to lay claim on the island and take it back into the sea. Sometimes Arthur hoped they would take him, too, so that he could leave.

“Will you be fine?” Morgana had asked.

She had cornered him in his room the night before he had left, timing it perfectly to ensure that he was still too busy to simply take leave of her. She had stood in the doorway of his quarters, and the light from the lantern candle she held caught on the beads and jewels of her dresses, and turned them molten in the half-light.

Morgana continued, “They said they can extend the current stint of the current keeper until they can find someone. Mordred told me so. Did he speak to you?”

Arthur ignored the question. “I know,” he said. “But the current keeper already done two stints back-to-back to account for illnesses.”

He had been thinking of Guinevere when he had told Morgana this, the way he did when dealing with the stress of his father. Thinking about the soft curls at the nape of her neck. How she used to look at him across the sprawling courtyard of the Pendragon Estate. Only now they weren’t his thoughts to have. Arthur wanted to be angry, he wanted to be livid, Guinevere leaving was why he had to take the task alone, after all, but there was a certain numbness there. He couldn’t.

Arthur considered the book he held, turning his concentration to the cover and the spine where the binding was tight and unbroken. He had bought the book on a whim, finding the black cloth cover appealing.

“It’s not right that you’ll have to do it alone,” Morgana said, her voice lined with steel. “People aren’t meant to be alone.”

“I don’t mind it,” he had told her. He kept his eyes on the book as he said it. “I welcome it, in fact. I was only here because our father’s condition demands it, but now that you’re here and with the estate in your care, I can leave.”

“Mordred--”

“I know,” Arthur said. “I know. He has spoken to me about-- about coming. Mordred’s a good man, but inexperienced. The work there shouldn’t be much for a single person.”

Morgana’s look had soured and then turned cool. Her head was tilted in a way that strongly reminded Arthur of their father, how he once used to assess a person’s value in that same cool manner. Arthur couldn’t help but straighten under it.

“Stop thinking about your ego. You don’t have to be like Uther. You don’t have to punish yourself for things outside your control.”

“I’m not,” Arthur said. “I’m doing what I agreed to do. Even if the circumstances aren’t the same,” -- Arthur didn’t stumble over the words, but it was a close thing -- “I can’t resign on such short notice. I can’t have someone without experience tag along. Not when it’s going to further inconvenience people. I’ll be alone for a month or two, at most, and then they’ll grant me an extended leave before my next roster.”

“Guinevere is going to marry Lance,” Morgana said, suddenly. “I prefer you hear it now from me, than later from someone else.”

Arthur fumbled the book he held. He managed to catch it before it slipped through his fingers, and he stared at the way his hands were clasped tight around it, the tips of his fingers white against the dark cover.

“Thank you,” he heard himself say, his voice distant, as if it originated from some faraway place.

Arthur did something with the book. He didn’t know what.

He would later discover he had packed it, tucked in neatly with his clothes.

-

The supply drop came in later that week, and the delay meant that it had almost been three weeks since Arthur had interacted with another person.

Arthur met Percival at the foot of the island. He helped him drag the small rowboat on the shore, and secure it, even if the relative height and size of the man suggested that Arthur’s assistance was superfluous at best.

“It’s good to see your face,” Arthur said.

He had aimed for frivolity, but then remembered his letter and stopped speaking. It didn’t help that his voice sounded unused and out of practice, at least to his own ears.

Percival didn’t appear to notice, just grinned at him and helped him unload.

The heavier crates went onto the pulley system. The length of wick, the tools, the extra clothes and blankets. Arthur hesitated over the new batch of pickled vegetables before he shoved them to them to the bottom of the crate to deal with later.

“Did you want to stay for a drink?” Arthur said once everything was transported to the top of the island and stowed away.

“Oh?” Percival asked with a wide and easy smile. “There’s still some drink left?”

-

After three weeks alone, it was strange to see someone else and to realise how the shape of them displaced the emptiness of a room. There was a realness and solidity to Percival that turned the strange half-things that Arthur sometimes saw or sometimes heard into a revealing light. _This_ was real. Percival was real.

Even when Percival sat at the table there, he towered over it. It erred on the side of ridiculous because the table was so small in comparison, like one from Morgana’s doll houses when they had been children.

Arthur had been alone for long enough by then to wonder if people were always this tall or if it were him and the table at fault. Then he set the thought aside to top up a glass with whiskey and slide it across to Percival, who murmured his thanks and tossed it back.

Percival set the glass back to the table with a sharp click. Something in Arthur ached at the sound -- a pain that grew from deep in his chest and sat tight against his sternum so that it was difficult to take a full breath. He quickly took Percival’s lead, draining his glass. Arthur concentrated on the burn of whiskey down his throat and into his belly.

“I can bring back letters, if you have them,” Percival said.

Arthur’s thoughts turned immediately to the one that he had finished earlier, still left on his work desk. Then he thought of Percival reading it, his large hands carefully undoing the seal and unfolding the papers. Arthur had to stop himself from reacting, though he couldn’t quite help the sharp intake of breath.

He doubted that Percival would. There was nothing about his stance or bearing that suggested duplicity, after all, but it was the idea of it. Arthur’s face was hot from entertaining the thought of this man, of anybody, reading his words. He’d made them too honest.  

“I don’t,” Arthur said finally. “But thank you.”

Percival nodded slowly, and Arthur poured himself another nip of whiskey as he weathered the scrutiny, only breathing when the weight of Percival’s attention lifted. Arthur quickly polished off his drink and let the smoothness of alcohol burn through him.

“Seems lonely here,” Percival said at length.

Arthur inhaled and set his jaw. He glanced away first, and caught sight of his own reflection in the glass windows across the room. The angle wasn’t enough to include Percival in it. It was just him at the table.

“It isn’t,” Arthur said, regarding Percival now. “At least, one gets used to it. There’s a lot to do.”

Percival’s look was quick and Arthur paid it no mind. Instead, he reached out to grab the bottle and top up both glasses. He’d snapped at Morgana for less, he knew. He also knew that Percival had given him an opening.

 _Yes._ _It’s hard. Please stay._

But the words balled up in his gut and refused to move. He had agreed to handle the task alone, and going back on his word was not how he worked. The winter would pass and then he would take his allotted leave and by then they would have another man assigned with him. He could last until then.

His grip was tight on his glass and he forced himself to loosen his hold.

“How is it back on the mainland?” Arthur asked.

“Rains a lot,” Percival told him. Then he said, “For some reason, I thought you had a wife?”

It was difficult not to react, and he wasn’t sure how well he’d managed.

“The engagement fell through,” Arthur said. “She--”

Couldn’t do it. Wanted someone else. Those had been her exact words, hadn’t they?

Around him, the present faded and he was back in the Pendragon Estate, his mind troubled by his father’s illness and by the mounting workload that his father had let lapse. It had been cool that day. Wet from a near constant drizzle.

He barely had the chance to glance outside. He’d been stuck all morning in the office with mounds of paper and figures that _did not make sense_.

How long had the estate been running at a loss? What would need to be sold off to cover the existing and future expenses?

Arthur thought of Gwen. He thought of the workers hired to maintain the house and the grounds, the horses and other animals. He thought of Morgana.

Arthur thought of the accountants and the lawyers. He thought of his uncle, Agravaine, who his father had brought on as an advisor. He wondered if they knew. And if they did, why didn’t they advise his father? How hard was it to have brought his father in and show him all of this and say, _We need to resolve this before your money is gone_.

He sat back on the chair and rubbed his face acutely aware of the fact that none of the lawyers or the accountants or his uncle’s counsel would have done very much for his father. His father wouldn’t have listened. He wouldn’t have cared. Uther, as he was now, existed in a place beyond those specific cares. A place where the consequences of his actions had no bearing because Uther lived in a space that was both immediate and endless.

 _Why did you do this_ , Arthur thought. _Why can’t you just--_

Arthur didn’t let the thought finish itself. But he sat very still with his face in his hands, aware of his breathing, aware of the weight of his own body in the chair that he sat in. His heart thud heavy and slow in his chest, and it was echoed in the beating of his head.

A knock at the door startled the breath out of him and Arthur straightened.

“Yes?” he said, curt.

The door opened and Guinevere stepped in.

The effect of her presence was immediate. Concerns about finance, and his father, and the guilt of his thoughts sloughed off his back at the sight of her, so familiar and dear.

“Guinevere,” he said, standing. “Come in. Please. Why are you standing there?”

He stopped at the look on her face. “Was there something wrong? Is it my father? I--”

“No,” Guinevere said.

She stepped in the room and closed the door, her back pressed to it. She didn’t come to him.

“I’m sorry,” Guinevere said, sounding much more like the woman that Arthur had first met years ago, when their interactions were defined by the way Guinevere ducked her head, too embarrassed to meet his eyes, and how she’d apologise for nearly everything, be it within her control or not.

Back then, Arthur had found it charming, and perhaps a little amusing, the way Guinevere used to blush and curtsey, and then hurry away whenever they so much as crossed paths.

But all that had long since given way to Arthur stealing Guinevere to the quiet corners of the estate. He was familiar to the way she’d smile at him, and how that smile tasted, warm and pleasant.

He had forgotten how she once had been with him, and the return of it was an unpleasant turn in the pit of his stomach.

Guinevere lifted her head. Her expression was very even, but the tightness of her mouth and the furrowed crease of her brow belied the calm she exuded.

“Arthur,” she said. “I can’t do this. I can’t be with you.”

He heard himself asking, _What do you mean_.

Guinevere responded in that same distant way, _I mean, I’m in love with someone else_. _Please, Arthur. I’m sorry. I never meant for it to be this way._

Arthur forced himself to the present and finished his whiskey to clear his head. He barely tasted it this time, even if he started to feel the affects of it, his thoughts a little fuzzy at the edges, his limbs a little slack.  

Guinevere was happy now. She and Lance were expecting a child. There was no point in thinking of it.

-

Percival left later than he’d wanted to. By then the tide had risen, sloshing around their ankles as they waded through it to the boat. Arthur watched him step into it, and told him to take it easy when it rocked under his weight.

“I can stay if you want,” Percival said, after he had steadied.

He’d sat so his gaze was turned up to Arthur, direct and clear. There was nothing in his tone that spoke of failure should Arthur accept. No judgement, just a simple offer.

Every part of Arthur wanted to accept. He was tired of being alone. He was tired of his thoughts circling around his failure as a son and his failure as a potential husband.

It was so easy to consider what it would be like to have Percival’s company. How much easier his days would pass with not only the duties shared, but the time and space.

Arthur clenched his hands and felt his blunt nails dig divots in his palms. His heart beat hard in his chest.

What he wanted was on the tip of his tongue. The words on the cusp of existing. All he had to do was say them.

 _You don’t have to be like our father._ Weren’t those Morgana’s exact words? Arthur could hear her saying them now. _You don’t need to punish yourself._

“No,” he said. The word came out nearly breathless, wrenched out of him. He clawed in a shuddering breath and continued. “No, I’m fine.”

Percival hesitated, and for a second Arthur thought he was going to reject his words. That Percival would say, “I’ll stay,” and step out of the boat.

Shame rose in Arthur’s gut. Everything that he had said, the assurances of the thing he could do, flashing through his mind, because he wouldn’t stop Percival if he did that. If he stayed. But Percival didn’t. He remained seated, slowly nodding, before he took up the oars again.

“Oh,” Percival said.

Arthur’s chest clenched.

Percival reached into the pocket of his coat and pulled out a couple of letters. “I almost forgot.”

“Ta,” Arthur said after a delayed moment, reaching down to accept them with numb fingers.

His nerves were shot, body detached from his thoughts as the surge of nervous excitement eased into painful disappointment. He clenched the letters tight in an effort to steady himself.

“I’ll come by where I can,” Percival told him as he pushed off. The water splashed brightly as the oars hit the surface. “If you have problems, just tie something red up there and I’ll get you.”

“Thank you,” Arthur said. “But I wouldn’t want to trouble you.”

Arthur waited until Percival was out of sight, watching him go as if to prove to himself that the man was gone and that he wasn’t going to turn back. Then he took a steadying breath and climbed the stairs back to the top of the island. Each step upwards heavier and more painful.

At the top of the stairs, Arthur regarded the lighthouse, searching for some aspect of it that would endear it to him. It stood white in the sunlight, painful in its brightness. He followed the line of it, a pillar against the pale sky capped by a glass cage. Arthur’s attention snagged on the lantern. It took him a moment to make sense of it -- the distorted column of black inside that shifted restlessly.

With a hard exhale, he started back towards the house with his head already listing the possible reasons for the anomaly. Perhaps the cover of the lamp was displaced, or maybe it was a sea bird gone afoul as they sometimes did. It was only when he stepped back into the house that he realised what it was.

A person. A ripple of cold went through him. Someone was there.

 

 **1932**  

Merlin was wrenched so abruptly from sleep that he struck out. His arm hit something solid, and whatever it was hit back. A short scuffle followed, the violence of it exaggerated by the dark, making the blows harder, more painful, before Merlin managed to shove Will back, nearly falling off the bed in the process.

“What the hell, Merlin,” Will said, breathing hard.

“Oh, piss off,” Merlin said, rubbing his aching shoulder.

Anger simmered below the surface of Merlin’s thoughts, held at bay by tired confusion. He tested his arm, stretching it out and kneading the tender muscle. It would at least bruise. Will was stockier and taller, and had always come out best in fights. Merlin had to smother another swell of annoyance, distracting himself by glancing around the room for any indication of the time, half expecting the thin light of morning to be spilling through the windows and so he was quietly surprised that all he could see was black.

“Was that you?”

The force of Will’s words dragged Merlin’s attention back to him. Merlin was careful to look over the hard line of Will’s shoulder. He didn’t want to look at him. Sensing him there, being aware of the space he took up and how close he stood by his bed, knowing that he held his body as if he were prepared to fight was enough.

“Will,” Merlin said.

His voice was rough to his own ears, still somewhat clouded with sleep, though there was a hint of impatience when he continued, “You just-- you woke me up.”

Will swore under his breath and shoved his hands through his hair. His knuckles were hard and white. He slid his hands over his face and dropped them by his sides again. He stared hard at Merlin, forcing him to look, and, with reluctance, Merlin dragged his gaze to meet Will’s.

In the dark, Will was so pale that he was white. It made Merlin think of the time he had stumbled over the corpse of an animal at the beach once, its skin mottled grey-blue, stretched tight over its bloated body. Merlin remembered the way the animal’s teeth had pulled away from the gumline, some already missing. Will had wanted to poke the animal with a stick, but the thought of doing so, of treating something that had passed away in such a manner, had nearly made Merlin sick.

“I heard something,” Will said, finally.

“It’s the house shifting,” Merlin said.

Will laughed, the sound of it an explosion in the heaviness of the room around them. Merlin curled his fingers in the sheets where they were still sleep warm. He didn’t drop Will’s gaze, even if it turned something over in his stomach.

“I don’t-- I don’t think so,” Will said. “I think…”

Merlin could almost taste what Will wanted to ask. He saw it in the restless way Will stood there.

A part of Merlin thought that he should offer it first. He could make it easy for the both of them by being the one to put it on the table. But instead, Merlin waited, curious to see when Will would be pushed over the line.

Will licked his lips, his gaze jumping from Merlin’s face to the bed and up again.

“I heard someone when I was checking the light,” he said, finally. “They were coming up the stairs. I thought it was you, so I called out and said that it was my turn. Only they kept coming.”

Will cut himself off with a small sound. A hiccup of nerves that he had to push down before continued. Merlin watched, fascinated, as Will clenched and unclenched his fists. There was an odd detachment to the situation, his own past confusions and those handful of incidents -- the bell, the ship -- shifting to a quiet sort of resolution. An acknowledgement of sorts.

“I was still expecting you when they reached the top. I was-- I was,” Will stopped, staring wide-eyed, his expression open in a way that Merlin hadn’t seen for years.

Merlin had to stop himself from reaching out, tried to smother out the tenderness because there was no longer a place for it between him and Will. Will regained composure a moment later, drawing in a breath between his teeth, his expression hardening.

“Who was it,” Will demanded. “Tell me. Who.”

“I don’t know,” Merlin said. “I don’t know, Will. How would I know.”

Will shifted, stepping back a couple of paces as if he needed the distance to collect himself. He glanced out to the window and Merlin followed his gaze. The night was thick outside, a solid black with no hint of the ocean or of land. It felt as if they were suspended elsewhere, far out of reach from everything else. Just as the thought was realised, the world beyond the bedroom carefully eased itself back into place.

A shiver ran through Merlin, because he hadn’t noticed the way the ocean had held its breath until it unfurling like a sigh that crashed against the rocks far below them. The birds came back to life too, crooning to each other in the dark. Merlin closed his eyes and concentrated on the ever pervasive smell of salt and the hint of metal and wood that originated from the house, using it to root himself into the moment in case it shifted away again.

Merlin opened his eyes and found Will in the dark, standing in the shadows several paces away. His expression was inscrutable, and what little Merlin could read was further obscured by the shadows.

“I know--” Will spoke slow and stilted, as if he were someone handling the words for the first time and did not know what to arrange them. “That you feel it. The things that happen here. You need to do something. Please.”

-

Merlin could refuse this. He could tell Will that he was acting paranoid or that he needed sleep. Merlin could do either of those things. He was prepared to. The words were already there in his mouth and he had to keep swallowing around them.

It was one thing to have Will agree to this, and another thing to have him watch as Merlin arranged things. There was an awful sense of deja vu about it, not so much in the way that Merlin set the candles on the table and filled up bowls with water. He had never done this in front of him, after all. It was more the weight of Will’s gaze and of his wariness.

Every so often, Will shifted where he stood and exhaled hard, and each time he did made something tense at the base of Merlin’s neck, as though he were expecting Will to crash forward and turn everything over.

When Merlin was young, after his father left for war, his mother would do the same as he did now. She’d clear the table of the linen and the little pot of flowers, replace them with pillar candles, then seat herself and stare to the wicks of them, taking herself to another place for hours until she stirred back. Thinking, she’d call it, then she’d fuss over him to distract him from what she had done.

But, at ten, Merlin understood that it wasn’t so much what she had called it, _thinking,_ but the way that she had done it. Sitting there at the table unmoving, the candles not even flickering -- Merlin would have sworn that he’d seen the wax climb back up the length of the candle to pool at the top. Heathen, Will’s mother would have called it, though she called a lot of things heathen.

“Is this a secret?” He’d asked, and his mother had paused and said, “Yes, Merlin. It’s yours, too. You must never tell.”

She had shown him how to do it, how to sink into that infinitesimal space between existence and the things beyond it. She had told him where to tread, how far he could roam, and how to come back; a more guided and controlled approach to the things Merlin had done by accident several times before.

But that had been so long ago.

Merlin stepped back and surveyed the table. He clenched his hands and let his nails bite into his palms.

He hadn’t done this for so long. He wasn’t sure that he could.

Yet that was even a lie in his own thoughts. There was a part of him that still knew, that was still aware, a part of him that delighted in all those unanswerable things that occurred around him since he had stepped foot on the island. That long lost part of him had sparked to life and the flame of it was tended to by whatever existed in the lighthouse.

“Merlin,” Will said, voice jagged in the low light. “You don’t bring the devil in--”

“This won’t--”

“I will pray for you after this,” Will said. “So you know. I understand why we’re forced into-- into this. What with whatever it is here. We need it out,” he said. “But don’t bring in the devil.”

“This won’t work if you’re going to be narrow minded about it,” Merlin said lightly, finding confidence in the tightness of Will’s voice.

Merlin pulled out a chair, the feet silent against the wooden floor.

Will hesitated before he sunk with apparent trepidation into the chair opposite. The candlelight cast a warm glow across his features so he looked real again, less the pallor of the animal on the beach. The shadows at his throat bobbed, and he shifted to set his hands on the table, curled into fists. Merlin stared at the bridge of his knuckles.

The licks of flame stood tall and unwavering in the air. Merlin shifted his attention to the wick and allowed himself to sink into the rhythm of his heartbeat. He felt his shoulders relax and his breath draw slow and even. He was aware of the weight of his hands on the tabletop, and the grain of wood under his fingers. There was a pressure at the crown of his skull, the sensation of being untethered even though his body seemed to become heavy and immovable.

“You have to be careful,” his mother had told him. “When you look.”

He remembered that morning to the last detail, how they had shifted around each other in the cramped kitchen making breakfast. He had knocked over a mug of tea with a stray elbow, and quickly moved a plate of toast out of the way of its path, watching as the liquid ran across the table and split over the edge.

They had looked the night before, and there was still a measure of unreality in being back in the present, of being back in their own house.

“Why?” he asked, belatedly, looking up.

“Because you don’t want to confuse the past with the present.” His mother had said it desperately, hands tight around a rag like she had started to pass it to him and forgot. “You can’t confuse them, Merlin, or you’ll never come back. Please. Don’t get lost in looking.”

It was the sound of footsteps that roused him now. Will hissed in a breath. Merlin opened his eyes and waited for the table to come to focus. He saw the candles first, how the flames stood steady and bright over the ring of melted wax at the base of the wick. He saw the bowls next, the contents still and black. He saw Will across from him, his head turned towards the bedrooms. Each line of his body stood tense, caught between fight or flight that he had simply froze. Merlin followed his gaze.

There was a man there, standing in the open doorway of Merlin’s room. A jolt of recognition went through Merlin. He knew this man. _He knew him_. But the thought faded instantly, leaving behind the maddening sensation of something long forgotten, and yet still familiar.

The man was tall and broad shouldered. His gold hair glinted in the dull light. There was open surprise on his face, his blue eyes wide and his mouth slack. It was his youth that struck Merlin. He wouldn’t have been much older than him and aside from the style of his clothes -- the fabric heavier, darker, something a generation or two out of style, it was too easy to think that he lived here _in this time_.

Distantly, Merlin wondered if this is what his mother had meant. _Don’t get lost in looking_. Merlin imagined himself standing and crossing the room to the man. Merlin would hold out his hand, palm up, and the man would look between Merlin’s face and to his hand, and then--

Will exploded out of his chair with enough force knock over the candles. The room plunged into darkness, making Will bark out an expletive.

Merlin set his jaw and breathed through clenched teeth. The smell of candle smoke was strong, momentarily overtaking the ever-present saltiness. He focused on that instead of how the night had shifted back into place around them, the lingering sense of deep familiarity eroding away so that it was nothing more than tattered remnants.

Will fumbled in the dark while Merlin remained seated. Will banged into the table. He crashed against the kitchen bench where the pots were stacked, making them clatter. Will knocked on the wall, thumped at it until he found what he was after. The noise was incredible. Each one coming like a physical blow. Merlin dug his fingers against his thighs and bit down hard on his lip.

The lights overhead flared into life. Under them, Will stood bone-white and wide-eyed, and he stared at Merlin for a long, long moment before he strode to his bedroom and slammed the door shut after him.

-

When Merlin stepped out of his bedroom later that morning, Will had already made breakfast and tended to the boiler. Perhaps a more naive person would have taken it as an apology, but Merlin understood that Will was restless -- and most likely had a monologue arranged in the same way his mother did when she was angry at their antics. Some bitter part of Merlin wondered if Will was going to thrust a set of rosary beads in his face.

Merlin sat at the table with a bowl of porridge and waited, tensing when Will came in from outside not five minutes later. Will stalked around the kitchen first, checking this and that while removing his coat and his gloves. He made a tea, banging open the cupboards for a mug and the tin of tea leaves, before he rounded to the table.

“You know, it’s not right for you to do that,” Will said.

Merlin let out a breath and dragged in another.

“You think you’re like-- like those mediums... that-- that Aleister Crowley -- And you remember what he did, yeah? You remember what he did. All those stories? Inviting the devil into his house. To-- to--”

Will set a mug of tea on the table hard enough for the liquid to slosh over the edges. He swore and yanked his hand away, shaking it and hissing in pain.

“This is different than that,” Merlin said, hard and unsympathetic. “This is different and you know it. This isn’t anything _like_ what Crowley says he does.”

“That he _says_ he does,” Will repeated, turning his attention back.

His face was twisted in a way that made Merlin fight not to visibly flinch, though he doubted his success.

“Oh, look at you, Merlin Emrys. So in touch with the great beyond you can stand there and point out the frauds.”

Will gestured around them, to where they were caged in the low-ceiling room of the house.

“They’re always around us,” Will said. “Isn’t that what your mother says?”

“Doesn’t yours always say that God was all around us? How is that different?”

Will made an angry sound at the back of his throat. “Do you hear yourself? You always have an answer, don’t you? You always have to _talk_ . Can’t just admit for once that you’re wrong. _You_.” The word was hard, Will leaning on the table as he said it, hands flat on the surface. “Are wrong. You have brought this thing here. You have welcomed it in, and now we have to beg God for help.”

Merlin refused to budge in the face of Will’s rage. Not this time.

“God,” Merlin said. “ _God_.”

“I'll pray for your soul, too,” Will said, and he stopped there and looked Merlin up and down in a way that made Merlin’s skin prickle in spite of his resolve, that made his face heat, his head blank of any response he could give.

“You’ll need it,” Will finished. Then he straightened, pulled at his coat and then left, crossing the room for the front door.

Will slammed it shut after him and the vibration rang through the room until it faded into ringing silence. The sound collected in the hollow parts of Merlin’s body. It filled him up until he couldn’t bear the weight of it, and he shoved his bowl away so that he could rest his head on the table.

-

It had been nearly two full days since he’d seen more that suggestions of Will’s presence. A feat, considering the circumstances. It was as if Will had turned himself into another aspect of the lighthouse, just one other insubstantial thing that failed to solidify when Merlin turned to address it.

But this had always been the stumbling block of their relationship. Even though they had repaired whatever it was between them in order to work here together, it was always going to unravel at the same place.

“What do you think about them,” Merlin had asked Will once. “Ghosts.”

“There’s no such thing,” Will had said.

Will was four months older than Merlin and at the time they had both been fifteen. Merlin’s father had disappeared. He had just returned from the War only to abandon them, leaving behind no note and no word.

His mother told him that he would come back when he was ready, and she’d said it with a smile that stirred something like hate or despair or anger in Merlin’s stomach, because _for what_. Then he’d made himself sick with guilt at the thought, because they were lucky to have his father back at all, even if had only been for a brief time.

“How do you explain them then?” Merlin had demanded.

Merlin had navigated the lines of his mother’s words -- _this is our secret_ \-- and found the perimeters of them insubstantial and lacking, and halfway insulting. Time and age hinted at the inherent loneliness of a secret, but back then, all Merlin knew was that a secret promised a degree of control, be it over him or someone else.

It had been hot that particular day, telling of a warm summer ahead. The air was crisp, filled to the brim with flowers that gave Merlin a headache and made his eyes itch. Everything was alive and overflowing with life, and it existed at odds with the heaviness in Merlin’s chest. The conflict made him restless. It distracted him. It made it difficult to keep track of his own thoughts.

They were walking down the road back to town, the ground rutted and rocky underfoot. Will stopped. Merlin stared at Will’s profile, at the curve of his chin and his jaw, which was wispy with downy hair that Will was trying to coax into a beard. Will stared resolutely forward, and for a moment, Merlin thought that Will was going to ignore him, but then he took in a breath and glanced at him.

“Explain what?” There was a warning in Will’s voice.

 _Don’t,_  it said.

Everything in Merlin ached to continue. The words were right there on his tongue. All the stories about how his mother would sit at a table and look. Or how Merlin would sometimes touch the walls and see. Maybe if he got it all out, he would find a clear answer to the things he wanted.

He wanted to know why his father left, and the universe wasn’t answering. He wanted Will, and did not have him because Will wasn’t interested in the way that counted. He wanted all these things, all these things beyond his reach, beyond his capability to grasp. So he would take anything, because anything was a better answer than nothing.

So Merlin said, “Hearing things. Seeing things.”

“You’re asking for the devil,” Will said it before Merlin finished, voice hard. “You’re letting them in.”

Merlin attended church with WIll sometimes, and he had sat there beside him with his hands folded together on the hard pew as the priest went through the sermon. When he stayed at Will’s for dinner some nights, Will’s family would gather to the table and bend their heads over their clasped hands in grace before eating. Merlin knew this because he’d always peek. There was a horseshoe over the front door of Will’s house, there were statues and paintings in every spare space. Will’s mother quoted the bible when Will got too rowdy for her liking.

“I can show you,” Merlin said.

“You can’t prove what doesn’t exist.”

Merlin stirred himself back to the present and rubbed his face.

Their friendship had fallen apart after, dragging itself along for a couple of months, and even now, nearly a decade later, it still hurt to recall the day that Will just stopped turning up to collect him on the way to school.

It had been one of the smaller tragedies in his lifetime against the bigger ones of the War, and of his father, but the exactness of that particular heartache was something that Merlin could recall.

He remembered how he’d waited, long after classes had commenced that morning.

“Is Will not here yet?” his mother had asked.

“I’m not going to school anymore,” Merlin had told her.

His mother hadn’t pushed.

The morning that day had that same feeling to it. That same inevitability. Whatever truce they had come to, the agreement with each other that secured this job, and -- by extension -- a solid income for both their families on the mainland, it was already falling apart. Merlin could at least admit to himself that they were always set on that path the moment they had stepped foot in the lighthouse.

Some friendships just don’t work out, his mother had said. Sometimes people are too different.

A pot of porridge was on the stove, but the contents had already turned cold and hard. Merlin dragged himself from his seat, reheated it and scooped out the remaining portion and sat back down at the table. He supposed Will had wanted to keep himself busy. There were signs around the place that he had taken up Merlin’s tasks, clearly wanting an excuse not to cross paths with him.

But this wasn’t Ealdor. There wasn’t an entire village between them, and it wasn’t a matter of finding another group of boys to play with.

Merlin stabbed at his food, the spoon cracking against the bottom of the bowl in an unpleasant burst of noise. The sound melted into the walls around him, leaving behind it a ringing silence. Merlin sat very still, holding his breath as if waiting for a reprimand. Will springing out from nowhere, telling him to be quiet. Anticipation built under his skin, beating in time with his heart, and yet nothing eventuated. The wind outside remained the same, as did the birds, the ocean.

Merlin glanced at his bowl and the hard, grey contents inside it, and at his glass of water, where the liquid inside stirred in response to unseen stimulus, rippling faintly. He watched the way the surface gleamed in the light.

The decision, when it came, was easy. Merlin pushed off his chair, found a new bowl and dumped the water in it. The water sloshed up and down the smooth insides, agitated, spilling over the rim and wetting the table in a wide circle.

Merlin clasped his hands on the edge of the table, leaned over the bowl and looked.

 _Who are you_ . He stared hard beyond the moving water, where it shifted and turned, before it settled to stillness. _Where are you_.

An explosion and a hoarse cry cut through his concentration.

Merlin knocked over his chair as he scrambled back. His heart thundered in his chest and sweat broke out over his body, chilling him. He held his breath, waiting as silence settled uneasily around him. Even the wind and waves seemed to cease, the birds momentarily silenced.

In the dearth of sound, someone called for him.

At first it sounded as if it came from that same, distant place as the ship’s bell -- originating beyond the reality that Merlin existed in, but then it came again. His name, raw and wild, the person’s voice cracking at the end--

_Will._

Panic condensed in the pit of Merlin’s gut before bursting outwards. He stumbled over the fallen chair. His hip caught on the table. Pain bloomed here and there in staggered recognition but he shoved it all aside. Heart pounding, Merlin threw himself across the room to the lighthouse door. He tripped over the stairs and ran up, catching himself over and over until he pressed his hands against the cold white walls, using the sturdiness to haul himself up until he finally  tumbled into the lamp room, breathing hard.

Will stood in the centre of the room.

Merlin stared at the glitter of glass on the floor, then up to the lamp where it had exploded in its cage. Will stood in the middle of it, arm cradled to his chest. For one moment, Merlin thought that Will was fine, that he had been taken by surprise and simply stood there in shock. Then he saw the blood. Merlin scrambled to Will, spurred by the fear, his mind throwing images of viscera at him, of having it hold it all in place--

Will’s arm was sliced open from the wrist to the elbow, showing fat, muscle, and bone from an open flap of skin. Farm life and the war had taught Merlin the realities of life, but there was a horror in this that all his experiences hadn’t accounted for.

Together, they fumbled over the mess of Will’s arm. Through the ringing of Merlin’s ears, he was aware of the steady dripping of blood on the floor, and of the slick sound of fingers sliding over wet skin. Will’s breath came in small, hard puffs. Merlin shunted out of his jacket and wound it tight around Will’s arm to keep it together.

“Hold it,” Merlin hissed. “ _Hold it_.”

Will’s face was stark white and his hand couldn’t seem to find a grip. Merlin forced it there, pressing Will’s unresponsive fingers on the fabric. Dots of blood started to seep through, and helplessness welled through Merlin then, crashed hard in his gut. He tried not to think of Will bleeding out, of Will dying.

“You’re okay,” Merlin said, glancing up to his face, searching. “You’re okay.”

“Sometimes all they wanted to hear was that they were okay. That someone was with them,” Merlin’s father had told him. One of the very few things he had ever mentioned about the war. “Even when they knew they were dying.”

Merlin said it over and over. _You’re okay, you’re okay._

Will’s knees buckled and Merlin staggered under the unexpected weight. His boots slipped on the glass and blood, the sound slick and grating in turn. Will made a noise and twisted his good hand in the fabric of Merlin’s shirt. The collar cut tight against Merlin’s neck.

How he managed to take them down from the lantern room to the kitchen, Merlin couldn’t say. It was a journey he remembered only in pieces: Will’s feet stumbling over the steps, the ragged sound of their breathing echoing through the staircase. Merlin eased Will into the chair at the table and untangled Will’s grip on his shirt.

“Don’t go,” Will said, breathless. His eyes were wild and unfocused. His skin was pallid and cool to touch. “Please, Merlin.”

“I’ve got to call for help,” Merlin said. “I’ll be back, I swear, but I’ve got to call for help.”

Will didn’t let go, fingers tight and stiff, snarled on Merlin’s shirt. Merlin realised he was crying as he unfixed Will’s fingers. His face was hot and damp, and he swiped at his cheeks with his sleeve.

“I’ll be back,” Merlin said. “I’ll be back.”

The radio was kept in the record room. Will’s books were there from the previous watch, the pages open and marked in Will’s neat copperplate hand. Merlin shoved it all aside, knocking other detritus off the desk as he dragged the radio to him.

“C’mon, c’mon, c’mon,” Merlin muttered.

His hands were gummy with blood and nerves made him clumsy, his fingers missing buttons and sliding off the dials. Merlin shoved off the table and fisted both hands to his head. He held his breath in an effort to steady himself, reaching his mind out for that in-between space where the panicked beat of his thoughts could settle.

The shadow of another person brushed against his awareness, sudden and bright enough that it jolted a breath out of him. Merlin whipped around to the open door where it stood empty. _Not now_. The command was tight and rough, and Merlin turned back to the radio and sent a message through.

A response came a second later, crackly and distorted from the coast guard: _We’re on our way._

-

With Gwaine’s help, they managed to get Will down the stone steps and into the rowboat. Will was as white as the foam on the water, hunched under a pile of thick blankets.

“There’s transport arranged,” Gwaine said as he stepped into the boat and settled in. “He’ll be looked after.”

“Merlin,” Will said. “I’m sorry. I-- I bullocked it up. I know. I’m sorry--”

Will kept on saying it, _I’m sorry I’m sorry_ , on little hiccups of breath that were almost drowned out by the murmuring surf.

Merlin shushed him as Gwaine told Will to save his energy.

But Will fought to speak, the words slurred and half-formed. “I only wanted to be good. Merlin. I only wanted to be better for you.”

Merlin stood in the swiftly rising tide, and the water spilled into his boots, soaking into his socks, slowly turning his skin numb with cold. He saw two versions of Will in that moment: Will in Merlin’s room when he was younger, just fifteen, with his hand pressed against Merlin’s wall, wide-eyed, and this -- Will barely coherent, listing where he sat.

Gwaine said something about leaving, hands noticeably restless on the oars making the water ripple and splash. Merlin did not notice, staring at the crown of Will’s head, the thin sunlight catching where his hair was amber instead of brown.

“I miss you,” Merlin told him. “Sometimes I wish I didn’t, but I do.”

Will didn’t look up, but his hands spasmed where they rested.

Gwaine took Will’s silence as permission to leave, and he pushed off. With some effort, Will lifted his head and caught Merlin’s gaze.

“I’ll come back,” he said, words still unsteady. “I swear.”

Merlin nodded, but he was sure they both knew Will wouldn’t.

 

 **1870**  

Winter closed around Arthur, bringing with it a sense of isolation that deftly settled into the marrow of his bones. A constant ache, a pain he could never fully escape from despite the measures he took to smother it out.

He had moved his bedding to the main living area, heaped on the floor there like he used to as a child with the family dogs. Arthur had more than one disorientating morning where he had expected the warmth of a hound beside him and he had reached out a hand to curl against fur, only to find nothing. There was a quiet sort of shame to it, in returning to these childish habits for a modicum of comfort.

The days passed around him in an endless cycle, with Arthur never quite certain if he was living through different hours or simply repeating the same one over and over. It was only by logging records, his attention straying up to the date, that he could keep concrete track of it -- that he could see that one day passed into the next and that each passing block of 24 hours brought him closer to another person’s company.

But even then, there was always that thought, a suspicion at the back of his mind: who was to say that the midnights that he had lived through were not all the same thing that he had simply marked otherwise? Time was a man-made concept, after all, framed in a way that was easy to understand, easy to track, and so what happened when the markers were removed.

Did time pass or did it not? Was there an end to his stay at the lighthouse, or would he be stranded there, waiting for an unspecified thing, only free when it occurred.

 _Don’t think_ , he’d tell himself. _Don’t think_.

The morning that day had the same sharp chill as the days preceding it.

Outside, the ocean was hidden by a fog thick enough that Arthur kept the lamp burning for hours after the sun had supposedly risen.

In any other time, Arthur might have stopped to admire how the fog gave the impression that he stood within a shelf of clouds. He was never as religious as his father would have liked, but it was easy to think that he stood at the foot of what might have been heaven, and that the angels and archangels were within mortal reach.

Morgana would have liked the image of it -- the clouds, not the angels -- light diffusing through the smoky tendrils and turning the softness golden.

She might have called it romantic, the same way she called her poems romantic.

Arthur followed the train of thought, tender now, where he used to tease her about it at home.

“They don’t even make sense,” he would say. “They’re just words.”

“Yes,” Morgana had agreed. “They’re just words, and that’s what makes them powerful. What makes them viceral.”

Visceral, which Arthur privately thought was such a strange, violent word to refer to something romantic.  

Arthur turned his thoughts back to the tasks at hand, checking the oil level in the lamp before he set about cleaning the glass walls. The cold soapy water turned his fingers numb, and he was glad when he was done. He would have to unfreeze his hands over the wood stove before attending to anything else.

He didn’t realise the chill of the living quarters until he had emptied the bucket outside and came back in.

It filtered into his awareness as small, insubstantial things: the subtle shift of the air around him, the odd silence that engulfed him. And as soon as he noticed that, the larger differences registered, too. The empty fireplace where he had left it burning. The unrecognisable design of the stove. The threadbare carpet he now stood on instead of treated wood.

Arthur closed his eyes and concentrated on his breathing instead of the panic that was rising like a balloon in his stomach.

The smell of the ocean was stronger here, and over it was the acrid sting of bleach, as if someone had thoroughly cleaned the room he stood in. He could hear the waves now, and the distant call of seabirds. And then, on top of that, the suggestion of another person in another room: muffled sound of footsteps, floorboards shifting under their weight. A sound he had never heard in this context before.

He opened his eyes, searching, not afraid of what he would see, but apprehensive all the same in case he did see something.

Arthur cast a furtive glance to the window and found a brighter, clearer day than his own.

The tightly held panic shifted abruptly, turning into something sweet.

How long had it been since he had experienced a clear day? How long had it been since he had anything but fog? His entire body longed for sun.

Arthur moved before he had made the decision to do so -- crossing the room with an energy he’d forgotten existed within him.

He hesitated at the door, his hand folded over the cool handle. To open it was to acknowledge the things that happened around him, to leave it was to pretend nothing did. His grip tightened on the knob, before he turned it and stepped out.

Outside, the air was crisp and light, cool enough to suggest winter, but long before the chill of it had settled in. The seabirds called to each other overhead, the throaty caw of gulls scavenging for food overlaid by the the grating trill of nesting guillemots somewhere on the rocky outcrops of the island.

Arthur stood under the heat of the sun, his eyes narrowed in the pleasure of its warmth and how it chased away the cold that had knitted itself into his bones. He tilted his head up and let it burn on his face. It was as if he’d been given back his body, his muscles alive under his skin and aching to move. Had he been back at the estate, Arthur would have saddled his horse and spent the day hunting, but as it was…

Reluctantly, Arthur stirred back, eyes blinking open to the ocean before him.

Arthur squinted in the glare of the water, but did not look away. He had been lucky that the day hadn’t changed back when he had closed his eyes the first time. He did not want to test his luck a second time round.

So instead he walked to the unfamiliar fenceline. It was an echo of the one he knew, still in mid-repair from the storm that had torn it down. This fence was taller, a little over waist-height. The brightness of the white paint suggested a relative newness. It was sturdy under Arthur’s hands. He leaned against it. He let it hold his weight, testing it with more than what it would have been made to bear; the wood rail pressed under the ribs tight enough that it hurt to inhale.

Below, he could see the way the water pushed and pulled at the exposed shoreline, bubbling and swirling, churning against itself, and collecting in the shallow pools between the tall shards of rock. From where he stood, the smell of salt was thicker and somewhat metallic. There was also the sweeter smell of rot and seagrass -- familiar, exactly the same to Arthur’s own world -- and it pulled something at the back of his awareness. Tugged at it like a loose thread.

Arthur straightened, releasing a puff of breath. His hands clenched around the beam of the fence. A certain wrongness crept through him, starting at the top of his skull and inching downward. His grip on the fence was hard enough to hurt, and he had to force his breathing steady, to keep calm, half convinced that nothing around him would move if he, in turn, stood still enough.

But the sensation grew, engulfing him so that he stood anchored at the fence, disorientated and directionless with no solid sense of up or down. Before him, the ocean and sky blurred together until it was a formless sheet of blue.

The cold broke through and it froze the air in Arthur’s lungs. Arthur ripped his hands from the fence and turned, striding back to the entrance of the house. The door was different colour -- red instead of white; the handle black instead of bronze -- and he reached for the knob, the cold at his heels like it wanted to drag him into the ocean.

Arthur yanked open the door and stumbled inside--

\-- to his bedding on the floor. To a too-warm room. To the sick sense of disappointment and a keen aching loss.

 _Take me back_. The words were a taste on his tongue and he slid on the floor, his legs unable to take his weight. _Take me back_.

 

**1932**

Merlin jolted awake and stared at the black ceiling overhead. It took a long moment to remember where he was and what he was doing there, having woken expecting the low dark ceiling of his room in Ealdor.

The moment lingered long enough for panic to surface, spiking under his skin, before he remembered.

The lighthouse.

Merlin exhaled and forced his hands to unclench from the sheets. He brought them up and stared at how his skin was bone white in the semi-dark, how the shadows collecting in the lines and creases of his palms.

It had been two weeks since Will had left Arthur’s Lighthouse.

The image of his hands still tacky with Will’s blood filled his field of vision. It was accompanied by the memory of returning to the lamp room after Will had been evacuated, and finding it all in one piece. Merlin dropped his hands back on the bed. The minutes passed with excruciating slowness. He wondered if how long he’d been asleep before he wondered how long he had been awake.

Merlin reached for his watch on the table, angling the face of it to catch the moonlight streaming in, squinting until he could make sense of the hands. He was unsurprised when he saw that only two hours had passed since he had fallen asleep.

Protocol demanded that the lamp be tended to every four hours. Unless, of course, during a storm or in heavy fog, and then Merlin would have to stay with the lamp until it passed in case something happened -- the wick dying or a lens shattering, abandoning a boat or a ship to the mercy of the black ocean.

Merlin pushed himself upright on the bed. His head was heavy with lacking sleep, and pain marched down his neck, across his shoulders, and then followed his spine. His mouth was dry and his eyes stung. He was still tired, but sleep was too far away.

Merlin jammed the heels of his hands against his eyes and swore. He thought back to the aftermath of Will leaving, of having to find an equilibrium with the amount of work now rested solely on him.

But that was not what troubled him -- not the work load, or the interrupted nights, or the chill that had come to settle on the island. It was the blond man. The one who had been at the doorway. Merlin had thought of him again and again, dragged out the memory of the man, in turns frustrated that Will had interrupted the contact and guilty to think badly of Will after what had happened. Merlin surreptitiously wiped his hands against his thighs, aware of a phantom tackiness.

He had filled every receptacle he could find with water now that he was free to. He had looked beyond the depths of every single one.

Nothing had answered. He couldn’t understand why. He had expected, he had _assumed_ , that it would be easier to reach the man, now that he was alone. He had grown up with this in his blood. His understanding was innate. He should not be alone.

-

Merlin blinked awake, unsure of when he had fallen asleep. Everything ached. He had nodded off with his back against the wall, seated semi-upright on the bed. With a hiss, Merlin stretched out, rubbing his arms and then his legs to regain feeling.

Absently, Merlin checked the time and froze. His heart thudded hard in his chest. Three hours had passed. Three hours. Merlin’s stomach curdled. He was an hour late in checking the lamp. Merlin’s mind traced out every possible outcome. The oil could have run low. The flame could have died out. Even with the reduced traffic over the shipping routes, ships still depended on the light and there was a rocky outcrop only a few miles out. _That was why the light was there_.

Cursing, he flung himself out of bed, tripping over the knot of sheets, his own feet, a book he had left on the floor, before he managed to yank on a coat and dart out of the room to the lighthouse.

He did not notice the chill until he was halfway up the tower. It prickled up his neck first, then down his arms. Merlin stopped with one hand pressed to the cold wall, each one of his senses suddenly attuned to the shifting around him.

A ship’s bell rang in an endless, slow, and distant dirge, too far away to be a ship on the waters that the lighthouse watched over. It was the echo of another ship that had long been lost to time. The same one that Merlin had heard all those nights ago. It had to be.

Merlin closed his eyes. He concentrated on his breathing. His blunt nails scraped against the concrete walls and the feeling sent shivers through his body. The exhaustion that weighed him down made it difficult for anything to well up, he was too wrung out for anger or disappointment to think, _why now._

He commanded his body to move -- there was still a chance there was something on the water, still a chance that what he heard was true. Merlin bit down hard on his lip until his legs responded and he used his hands to push off the wall, gaining the momentum to continue up the spiral staircase to the lantern.

The light of the lamp was strong enough to cast a beam miles out across the ocean, but it was never this strong within the room itself. Merlin squinted against the sudden hardness of it, throwing up a hand and blinking until he could finally see the day in bloom around him.

The lantern room was sun-warm and bright, beams of light refracting off the glass, casting small flares and fragments of rainbows across the floor. It stirred to life the excitement that had once lived in Merlin, of being here and _wanting_ to be here. He hadn’t noticed that it had gone until then. He hadn’t noticed that he had felt it so keenly before.

He stumbled forward and pressed both hands to the glass where it cool despite the heat of the room. The sea glistened under the sun, catching on the crest of the waves. His fingers curled against the glass when he saw the rowboat: small and white, with a band of red through the middle.

Merlin’s breath caught in his throat. He stumbled along the glass walls, chasing a better vantage point, straining to see the burnished gold of Leon’s hair or the familiar set of Will’s shoulders. Or maybe it was the blond man. Excitement leapt in Merlin’s chest at the same time dread curled low in his stomach. He watched, rapt, as the boat continued steadily towards the mainland, toward the comfort and familiarity that it provided.

What would happen if he called out. Would the man hear him and turn? Would he come back?

Merlin’s eyes burned with more than the lack of sleep and his breath fogged up the glass. He swallowed roughly and he wiped where his breath had condensed on the window.

Then he stopped, hand freezing against the glass.

Down on the island, standing on the grass and with his head tilted up was a man. His hair glinted bright in the midmorning sun.

The distance made it difficult to discern his expression, but Merlin understood the confusion in the man’s stance -- the way his body seemed to pull towards the house while also reluctant to move.

Merlin lifted his hand from the glass. He would never discover his intent, whether it was to wave, or to signal to the man in some other way.  Night had fallen back into place around him, leaving Merlin to stare at his reflection, his hand still raised, his eyes wide and round, his mouth slack in clear surprise.

“No, no, no.”

It came more a groan than true words. Merlin pressed his hands and forehead to the glass, the cold a shock against his skin. But it was the wrong sort of cold, the one that rode on the back of night instead of the past; flimsy and insubstantial compared to the encompassing chill that spoke of a much greater and complex distance.

-

With everything tended to, the flame and oil levels checked and found adequate, Merlin returned downstairs.

He paused at the door of his room and peered at the shadows inside, at the heaping of his sheets and pillows on the bed. He hesitated.

Outside, beyond the lighthouse, there was a keen cry of a bird-- a high and thin warbling wail that was soon joined by another. The song filled in the silence in a way that made the emptiness of the night a painful, visceral thing.

Merlin closed his bedroom door as if the act of doing so would keep the noise in. In some way it must have worked. The rooms around him stood heavily in silence. It felt as if they were waiting. And maybe they were. Maybe they had been this entire time.

Merlin stood in the gathered dark, his hand still tight over the doorknob, too afraid to move in case doing so would disturb the sense of understanding that crept into his awareness.

“These things are in your blood,” his mother had told him. The sea. The spirits. “Your father was the same as you.”

Merlin’s grip spasmed around the doorknob.

To think about his father hurt in a way that Merlin couldn’t put into words even now, more than a decade later. Unfolding the memories he had of him made something ache in his chest, heavy enough that it threatened to smother him.

“I can look,” his mother had told him. “But I can only see with help. With water. With scrying. Your father, Merlin, he could see far beyond that. And that’s why--”

His mother had faltered then, the thin smile on her face dying, and he hadn’t pressed. More than anything, there was guilt for ever bringing it up in the first place, an echo of which stirred in his heart now.

The conversation had been shortly after his father had disappeared, and long before they discovered that he died. Whether by his own hand or another circumstance, they would never know. Balinor wasn’t even buried in the churchyard of Ealdor. They were never afforded the full closure of his passing, and the wound of it still hurt to touch.

He had been sore from Will’s abandonment then, too, burned with the injustice of the things he saw and the things he could reach, the promise to himself that he would never touch them anymore, but he had bit his tongue and stood up from the dining table and made her a tea instead.

Merlin thought about it now, made himself understand what his mother hadn’t managed to say.

She could look, she had said. She could _see_ , but only with help.

Using water to look had always been an easy thing for Merlin to do. Water was a natural conduit for many, many things. It was a basis for life, after all. The bare minimum. As long as he concentrated, he could find what he needed to find in the water.

Things moving around him. Time shifting. At times, even the echoes of whatever lives had unfolded in the same place that Merlin stood had happened. The village of Ealdor was small, but it had stood in that single place for hundreds of years. So many lives had played out within the walls of the town. People dying. People being born.

There were times Merlin would wake up in the middle of the night, roused by the constant downpour outside, before he settled in bed, oddly comforted by the murmur of distant voices caught on the back of the rain.

Sometimes he’d set his hands to the wall of his bedroom and close his eyes and sink into the other lives of the house, catching voices and flickers of other children, the strength of their excitement or sadness; or those awful lashings of anger. He’d let it run through him until it his body couldn’t contain the wealth of it all, and he’d snatch his hand away and cradle it to his chest.

Merlin had shown this to Will -- had _proven_ these spirits, these ghosts, to Will.

He remembered the day with a particular starkness, every sense tuned to a higher and more complex level. The colours had been brighter, bold, straddling the cusp of the colours he knew, and the colours that existed outside the sphere of understanding.

Merlin remembered the taste of that morning, the rich smell of rain and wet dirt. Excitement. Anticipation. What it would be to have someone else understand, to share with someone what he could do. The press of fear and nerves had barely registered.

Merlin remembered all these details, like he had memorised it to that degree so as not to forget what it was like to hurt.

They had been in Merlin’s room then, nearly a week after he had told Will outright. He had admitted it before then in other ways, partially confessed just to gauge the reaction.

Merlin had taken Will’s hand, warm under his, Will’s palm broader and fingers shorter and calloused, rough where Will’s father had been sharing with him his trade. Despite all Merlin’s careful consideration and despite his imaginings, actually sharing this had been new to Merlin; but he pushed that aside and pressed their hands to the wall, the paint grainy against his palm.

He had set their hands there and tethered his awareness to the heat of Will beside him on the bed -- the sheets rumpled under their knees, the pillow brushing against Merlin’s calf, pulled what he could from the rain outside and reached out --

To touch on the lives that had once lived there, catching the delighted shout of a child, a sprig of bright laughter in the middle of a bright and sunny day grass wet underfoot from morning dew.

 _\--Daddy got me a new boat I can’t wait to show it to Peter I can’t wait to try_ \--

Before Will had snatched his hand back and tumbled off the bed. He had scrambled off the floor, staring at him, hands fisted by his sides, the whiteness of his face turning red...

Merlin forced himself back to the present and eased his hands where they had clenched at his sides. His palms stung from where he had dug his nails in, and he rubbed out the pain with his thumb.

He had been upset after that day, but the sadness of it all had eventually consolidated to anger, which in time had cooled to distant acceptance. Will had wanted to know, and so Merlin had shown him. Will simply hadn’t been prepared to understand, not when it was on a tangible level, unlike how it was with Will’s heaven and god.

Merlin had pushed what he could do aside after that. In the face of Will’s reaction, and knowing what it had done to his father, how could he not. It was easier if he didn’t have to deal with it. But the relative contentedness that had come with ignoring that large part of himself didn’t exist now. He wanted it back.

Merlin still held on tight to the doorknob. He had to force himself to ease his grip enough to let go, and he flexed his hand, wincing at the stiffness.

The past of the lighthouse was strong enough that it overrode the relative disuse of his abilities. It was the simplest way Merlin could understand the inconsistent glimpses.

He considered what he knew of the lighthouse, pulling the snippets of history he had learned, that Will had been insistent on knowing. The walls around him shifted, momentarily coaxing Merlin’s thoughts away before he pulled them back. The people of the town nearby referred to it as _Arthur’s Lighthouse_ rather than it’s actual name of _Avalon Point Lighthouse_.

Merlin turned the name over in his head. It was chased by memory of Will telling him, of Will bringing it up over and over -- his gestures short and sharp as he said it, clearly waiting for Merlin to come to some sort of conclusion -- reminding him that the last person who manned the lighthouse _solo_ had been Arthur.

The realisation sent a jolt of excitement through him.

_Arthur._

Merlin nearly tripped over the rug in his haste for the record room. He fumbled for the lightswitch and squinted in the sudden, searing brightness of it. Blinking it away, he crossed the room to the shelf packed tight with the record books.

The ones along the top row were old and weathered, the spines peeling and faded. Merlin started there, taking the first one down to flip through it. The dates were the middle of the 1800s, and the pages were stiff and rippled, as if the book, at some point, had been dropped into water and dried in the sun.

He shoved it back and pulled down the next one. Merlin did the same over and over, finding dates and names, skimming over the notes in old copperplate hand, the ink faint in places, difficult to read; endless pages dotted with mold and blotted with ink that had sunk into the fibres of the page where they had spread, making them fuzzy around the edges.

Merlin found Arthur on the second row of the bookshelf. The record book for that year was thick and handsome, the pages thick and smooth under his fingers. It was easy to think that Arthur had brought it with him, that he had preferred it over the narrow flimsy books that bracketed Arthur’s records.

It didn’t feel any different in his hands. It was heavier, and the spine protested when he opened it, the binding still tight after all this time.

Arthur’s handwriting was looped and tidy. It was different than what Merlin expected, but then, he wasn’t sure what he had expected. Perhaps he had been expecting more. Perhaps a confession of sorts, an explanation, or something that _looked_ more like it had come from the hands of the man he’d seen. Sharp. Strong. Alive. Merlin fumbled to the desk and dropped hard enough on the chair that his teeth clicked together.

Merlin took a breath to steady himself and flipped back to the first page of Arthur’s notes. He ran his fingers down the page, as if the texture of Arthur’s words made them more real, somehow, more accessible.

_1st November, 1870_

_Weather: fine, fair; strong easterly wind_

_Temperature minimum: -2c_

_Temperature maximum: 10c_

The notes and observations, no different than what Merlin logged each day, continued down the page until one day turned into the next.

Merlin flipped ahead, then back to the beginning, the smell of old paper tickling his nose. He read Arthur’s notes on the birds he saw and on the fishing conditions, smiling at Arthur’s record of having had caught two flatfish on the 7th November.

The smile faded as Merlin saw in his mind’s eye Arthur doing the same thing each day, and it sent a shiver through him, hair raising on his arms, to realise that what he was doing -- what he did each day -- was an echo of Arthur’s actions.

Merlin brushed his fingers over the open pages, wishing could reach beyond them and let Arthur know that he understood. That he knew this, too.

So why weren’t his abilities allowing him? Merlin didn’t understand. Merlin bit his lip and  focused on the memory of Arthur at the doorway like it could conjure him. But time and distance remained unmovable.

Fighting the swell of disappointment, Merlin thumbed through the book again and stopped when he realised that there were loose sheaves tucked between certain pages. His heart leapt, and the burst of excitement made his fingers nerveless, like they didn’t belong to him. With the awareness to the strange silence of the room, Merlin carefully pulled the papers out.

_Dearest Morgana--_

Merlin had to bite his lip again, teeth closing over the tender indent, but it did little to smother out the sound he made. His eyes burned, and it took a long moment for the words to swim back into focus on the page. Merlin rubbed his face with the heel of his hand and continued to read.

_I hope this letter finds you well. In regards to your previous correspondence, I am faring well. There is enough here to do that I don’t notice the silence. Percival will be attending to me soon with another supply drop, and I shall give him this letter then. It may be the last visit until winter settles and I will be glad to see his face--_

There was a deep, black divot there, as if Arthur had stopped for a long moment before continuing. Merlin could see Arthur in his mind’s eye, the furrow in his brow as he turned over his thoughts before putting them to paper.

Merlin had been at the lighthouse for nearly a month with Will, and yet reading these letters penned by a man who lived more than sixty years ago was the closest he’d felt to another person. Merlin starved for the contact. He read all the letters, spurred by the heavy, distinct _want,_ despite knowing that what he wanted was an impossibility. He read them until the words blurred together and failed to make sense. And then he went back to the beginning and read them all again.

-

Will sat in a chair by the window. He had propped it open to let the breeze in, and the chill of the winter air settled against the nape of his neck and sent shivers down his spine. His sister had told him more than once to close it.

 _You’ll get sick_ , she said, and there had been a bite in her words, an accusation framed in concern: _you already lost a job_. _We have no money_ _because of you_.

He glanced at his arm, which was strapped against his chest and wrapped in bandages. The cost of the doctor and the surgery had been steep. It cleared out what he had earned and then some, and it was only due to the fact that he’d promised to clear the doctor’s garden when he was well again that the doctor had forgiven it. Will preferred to think of it as that, instead of the pity shining in Dr. Gaius’s eyes as he said that Will would be lucky to regain full use of his arm.

Will burned between frustration and melancholy aimed at himself, at his sister, at the doctor. He woke up some mornings grateful that he was home once more, and woke some others in despair that he had left Merlin behind again--

“ _Will_ ,” Sarah said from the other side of the room where she sat bunched in her chair with her knitting. “Close the window.”

Will set his jaw and reached over with his good arm to shut it with a click. The movement jostled him, sparking pain up through his arm in a way that sent a fresh wave of dull agony through his body. Will set it aside to stand, his legs and lower back aching from sitting so long.

“I’m going for a walk,” he said, and Sarah sighed.

Will had never really been affected by the cold. It had always been just one more thing to him, and his mama used to chase him with woollen jackets and an extra pair of socks that he’d put on and then immediately shuck as soon as she was out of sight. He’d give both to Merlin sometimes, who had been skinny and sickly-looking, the tip of his nose always red.

Only now, after Arthur’s Lighthouse, did he know that there was such a thing as a different sort of cold. One that bled into the body and that could settle in his soul; a cold that spoke of dead things.

This cold. _This_ cold at home in Ealdor. This winter cold with the suggestion of snow in it. This was what he understood. He could put on another coat if he felt it too much, and that would be the last he would think of it.

Ealdor was a small village, and so it was affected greatly in the aftermath of the Great War and suffered in the grips of the Depression. Will cut through the centre of the town, the shops there still and quiet. Here and there someone entered or exited a shop, and Will responded to their greetings by rote, nodding and lifting his uninjured hand. More than one person stared after him. He felt it on his back.

 _Poor boy._ The village said. _Always running into bad luck._

Will ignored it all and pressed on.

Under his feet, the roads were rutted and congested with water. Eventually the cobblestone was replaced by the paths worn in by a succession of farmers’ carts and tractors.

Earlier rain made the roads muddy and it caked his boots. It was like walking through sand, and for a moment Will stood at the beach once more, Merlin at his side and Avalon Island in the distance; the air thick with salt and the hems of his trousers damp with seawater.

But then the feeling was gone, and Will stood in the middle of the farm roads of Ealdor, surrounded by sparse fields in varying shades of brown, the smell of mud so thick and pervasive that it made him wonder how he smelt the sea at all. How could he? Even if Ealdor was close, only half a day’s journey from the ocean, he was never aware of the smell of the sea. It was too far.

He wasn’t Merlin. He wasn’t special.

Will clenched his teeth and pressed on, breaking away from the road to cut through a worn path into a small copse of trees that hid a natural hollow embedded low on a slab of large rock. An old fox den that had since been abandoned once Ealdor established itself.

It had been a common play spot when they were kids, and they had made a little coven of sorts, winding the tall grass that fringed the rocks into a makeshift curtain and ducking inside. From the outside, it would have been difficult to find a person sitting there, but looking out, they could see nearly everything, even a hint of the brown brick house of Old Man Cedric, which signaled the outer borders of Ealdor.

It didn’t take long to find that spot again. To find the small nest of trees that had, at one point, been enough to hide them both, and Will stared at it now, seeing himself and Merlin in his mind’s eye ducking in and out, laughing at how clever they were.

Then he remembered them older. He remembered Merlin worn down from his father’s disappearance, the way his eyes dark and shadowed. How he’d bitten his lower lip raw like the edges of his nails. He’d been distracted, like he was present only in a physical sense, much like how Balinor -- Merlin’s father -- had been.

Dr. Gaius referred to it as shell shock, a natural and tragic consequence from the war, but that didn’t explain Merlin.

“What’s wrong,” Will remembered asking. He’d made the trip that morning, turning up at Hunith’s front door half-expecting Merlin to have disappeared, too.

He remembered bunching his hands by his fists and the way his heart fluttered in his throat, wanting so desperately to find the root of it all so he could pull it out, as if the entire thing was as simple as _weeding_.

Merlin had turned his focus to Will, just a shifting of his eyes, everything about him so still that it had made Will shiver, sparked something like anger in his gut because--

Because, what?

 _Balinor’s gone_ , Will had reminded himself. But he’d been gone a long time, even when he’d been there.

“I just--,” Merlin had started. His voice had been low, only shades louder than Will’s own heartbeat. “I just want to see him. I just want to know where he is.”

 _If he’s alive_ , unspoken but present between them.

A breeze had cut through the trees, shifting the leaves around them, tearing them off the branches and stirring them at their feet. The wind had touched the exposed parts of Will’s skin, soft and deliberate, and he remembered brushing the feeling away, distracted.

Will had licked his lips and tried again.

“Okay,” he said, gentling his voice. “It’s okay. Look. I’ve nicked a bottle of drink from my ma. Some of her good stuff. We’ll go to the beach. You want to come down to the beach?”

It was late. The trip would eat up the rest of the afternoon and leave them stranded at the beach after dusk. But Will hadn’t pointed it out and Merlin hadn’t either. Merlin had shrugged and then nodded, and so Will had retrieved the bottle and packed what he could find to eat and they had made their way down to the beach on foot and in silence.

The memory of that particular journey was something that Will had relived often, so worn in that it was as travelled as the road they followed to get to Ealdor beach.

It had been spring then, with the fields lush and pollen thick in the air, tickling his nose and irritating his eyes. In spite of all the hallmarks of a perfect spring day -- the weather, the flowers, the hint of a warm wind, the back and forth call of birds -- there was a fragility to it.

They had walked down the road to the beach as if they carried a sheet of glass between them, and the size of it grew the closer they got; this heavy, delicate thing. Will had been afraid to breathe should he break it.

Will remembered glancing to Merlin. Trying to find a clue in the familiarity of his profile. Anything, anything he could have done, or said, that he could have tried, and he had tried, he had.

 _If Merlin would let him_ , he’d thought. If he would tell him what he wanted for once, because he wasn’t good enough to figure it out.

It had been a relief to make it to the beach. The distraction of the sea and salt and sand. The sun had sunk to the horizon then, and the sky was red with it. Almost bloody, the thin smear of clouds purple in the orange sky, and Will remembered thinking, _how strange_. Because he had been so used to the blue sky that an orange one seemed otherworldly for a moment -- a foreign, unrealised thing.

Will had done his best to lift Merlin’s mood. He’d kicked sand at him, kicked the waves at him, he’d laughed at the way the wind ruffled Merin’s hair and made it stick up. He’d offered to pat it down and make him respectable for the girls back in Ealdor. Merlin had shaken his head.

The last of the day had slipped away around them, taking with it the sun and the warmth. Cold air rolled across the water making Will’s skin prickle even if he hadn’t really felt the chill of it. Together, they’d set up a fire, and tossed whatever kindling they could find into the heart of it until it could sustain itself.

They ate the food Will bought in the warmth of the fire, the taste of bread and apples smothered out by the thick smell of smoke and sand.

The moon had been shy of full that night, but it was bright and clear in spite of the clouds. Will remembered staring at his hands in his lap, the colour of his skin pale and sickly, the shadows of his fingers elongated and sharp, looking as if they ended in claws.

Merlin had sat beside him, still quiet, his chin propped up on his knees.

The call of seabirds had come intermittently, having settled to roost, traded for the creatures that were more active at night; their calls slower, deeper, wailing and crying in the dark.

Merlin had stared at the fire and Will had stared at Merlin’s face, seeing how the light of the flames caught the gold of Merlin’s skin, the amber in his hair, and the blue of his eyes.

Will was never sure even now, some ten years on, what had happened or how he had even noticed it. That faraway look had crept across Merlin’s face again -- eyes unfocused and staring, unblinking despite of the burn of the flame. He had sat so still that Will doubted he was breathing.

It had sent a shock through Will’s stomach, the same sensation as if he’d tripped over something. His heart had beat in his throat so hard that he couldn’t swallow around it.

“Merlin,” he’d said, his voice thin and insubstantial in the dark, nothing more than a whisper.

Will remembered the crackle and pop of the fire, and a small log rolled out of the heart of it, sending another spray of sparks into the air. Merlin hadn’t even stirred. The smell of smoke was strong, momentarily overpowering the the ocean. It had stung his eyes.

“Merlin,” Will had said, harder.

_How was he so still?_

Will had grabbed him without thinking, wrapping a hand around Merlin’s wrist, the skin there warm -- _thank God_ \-- the jut of Merlin’s wrist bone digging into the heel of Will’s palm.

Merlin had flinched and his breath hitched; a small burst of air as if he’d surfaced from underwater.

“What did you do?” Will remembered asking.

“Wha--”

Will had squeezed and Merlin’s expression had condensed into pain. Surprise and disgust had made Will throw Merlin’s arm away from him.

No one spoke, and the fire had crackled on between them.

 _Be better_ , Will remembered thinking. It was what his mother had always told him whenever she’d caught him doing something she disapproved of.

She would yank him away, drag him to his room and tell him, “Be better, William,” before making him recite the Hail Mary for forgiveness.

Will had clenched his hands in his lap, nails biting hard against his palms.

“Sorry,” Will remembered saying. “I’m sorry. You scared me.”

They had shared the drink then, mostly to soothe Will’s nerves, the taste of ale bitter and biting on his tongue, clouding up his head so it was no different to the sky overhead where the clouds worked hard to hide the moon.

The fire had crackled between them and Will had sunk his fingers in the sand, digging them in deep before letting the fine grains slip through his loose fingers. Then he had gotten up onto his knees and held Merlin by his shoulders, and leaned in to kiss him. Will had not known he was going to do that; had only half-realised it had been something he wanted to do.

Merlin’s mouth had been hot and wet from the alcohol. Will had pressed in to chase it before he withdrew.

 _How many Hail Mary’s would he have to do for that_ , he had wondered, glancing down at Merlin’s slack mouth, shiny from the drink. Shiny from Will’s mouth.

Will had then sat back down in the sand. He remembered hearing Merlin shift. He remembered hearing the ocean behind them, the distant rush of waves. He remembered hearing the fire and his own heartbeat. Remembered hoping.

“I see things sometimes,” Merlin had said, finally.

“Liar.”

“I thought I could find my dad in the fire.”

How the rest of the night played out, Will couldn’t recall exactly. The details had been caught and distorted through his nerves, tangled in elation and disappointment. _I see things sometimes_.

Will stirred back to the chill of winter and to the nest of trees. Strange, but when he had first rediscovered them, he had seen the leaves and grass robust and full of life, only now they were withered and brown, gone for the winter. Will shivered, and the ripple of movement sent a jolt of pain up through his arm.

 _I see things sometimes_.

Will had told the doctor that he couldn’t really recall the specifics of the accident, except that the lamp had exploded while he had been cleaning it. What he hadn’t said was how the world had shifted around him, the day sliding into night and into the midst of a storm. There had been a crash. A bright light. The ground had rumbled under his feet. He had called for Merlin. Of course he called for Merlin. Merlin would always come, because Merlin was a better man than he was, and he knew they both understood that.

Will did not possess that otherworldly quality, did not share in the same abilities. He knew that Merlin was always destined for greater, more better things than him, and it was difficult to tell if he was scared more of losing Merlin to those unknowns or being left behind because he himself was nothing, really.

 

**1870**

_My dear sister,_

_I hope you are well. The winter has closed me off now, and I write this letter to you knowing that you won’t necessarily receive it for at least a month. I may even be the one delivering it to you._

_The days here are both long and short. It’s often difficult to understand when one day turns into the next. I often wonder--_

Arthur stopped and read the letter over. He was unsure of how to put into words what he wanted, how to put it in a way that would make sense. He exhaled hard, bent his head and continued, the rest of the letter eventually coming out in short bursts.

Once he was done, he looked up at the clock that hung over his desk and promptly stood, the chair bouncing and squealing on its feet as it was pushed back. It was late, and almost time to check on the light.

The world outside was dark and still, so devoid of life that it was as if he were the only living thing left in the world. Even the sea birds had abandoned him, long moved on for warmer shores.

Arthur stoked the fire and added another log to burn. It didn’t catch immediately. Instead, the flames flickered over it, and Arthur watched, aware of the heat against his face, stinging his cheeks and his nose. The escaping smoke making his eyes water, made his sinuses burn, and he tolerated it until he couldn’t, reaching out to shut the grate.

His thoughts returned to the letter, and Arthur wondered what his father would think of it all -- the inconsistent steps in time, the small events that didn’t seem to add up. Would he think it was divine intervention or the work of something demonic and dark? What made it one thing and not the other?

Arthur was never bound by religion as much as his father had been. He attended church, acknowledged the Sabbath and feast days. Habit saw him recite grace at meals and prayers before bed, but he couldn’t claim to hold the same fanatical dedication as his father, who turned to God for every facet in his life.

With the lantern checked and no immediate problems regarding the light, Arthur stepped onto the balcony and stared across the ocean, ignoring the prickle of cold against his exposed skin. The smell of salt water was thick enough for Arthur to notice for once. His breath condensed in front of him, mingling with the heavy fog. Visibility was nothing more than what the lantern illuminated, but even that was fuzzy and indistinct.

Arthur stared hard at the distant horizon for a long moment, where it sat obscured by cloud. Without needing to think, he grasped at his mother’s crucifix which hung, as always, around his neck. He wound his fingers in the chain and pulled it taut so that it cut into his skin before he pressed the crucifix to his mouth, the metal cool against his lips.

It was only then he allowed himself to think beyond the regimental lines of religion, turning back to the inconsistencies that chased him, small enough for his attention to gloss over at first, for him to assume that it was simply his mind exaggerating the things -- or it being his own lack of foresight, or some detail he had forgotten. But he was a single man in charge of a lighthouse, where the bulk of what he did was observe and log records. There was only so much he could miss, only so much that he could dismiss as incidental.

Arthur watched the fog as if waiting for something to reveal itself. Some sign or explanation. When nothing eventuated, he became aware of his own restlessness and the lack of surprise that existed below that. Arthur thought of his father again, remembering all those times he had told him, “Faith is confidence in what we hope for, and assurance about what we do not see,” lifted almost word-for-word from the Bible, and applied to everything his father saw fit.

His fingers were numb, throbbing at the tips where the circulation was cut off, so he unwound them from the chain.

For a brief, painful moment, he wished that Morgana stood with him, as much as she drove him mad at times. She would have understood the things that happened around him. She had an interest in all those esoteric, archaic things, even if it was hidden. Their father, after all, would have likely sent her to a nunnery if he had caught wind of it.

Arthur ducked his head then, allowing himself to smile at the thought of Morgana in a habit and part of the congregation at mass. The image of which refused to surface in his mind for the sheer impossibility of it.

The smile faded as he considered what their father would do if he discovered Arthur’s own contemplation of it -- those inexplicable things. He would be stripped of his title and inheritance. Arthur inhaled a breath and wound his hands around the guard rail, the metal startlingly cold and slightly damp under his fingers. He held on as if he was trying not to fall.

Arthur thought of the letter again, left abandoned on his desk. The pages were littered with smudges of ink where he had stopped to think, where he struggled to put what he needed to say into written word. He was always better at speaking.

Morgana had never breached the topic of her beliefs with him. She didn’t share them like she did her poetry, keeping all her readings and her trinkets and her rituals to herself. And Arthur let her. He had figured, at the time, that at least Morgana hadn’t tried to convert him to it. He didn’t want her as well as their father harassing him over their conflicting views, not when he was always going to be in the position of rejecting Morgana.

Arthur had to push away his frustration, the resulting tightness in his chest, and the lingering, tangible desire to do something. Everything in his head circled around the fact that if he had just paid more attention, had _listened_ to Morgana, then maybe he could also find an understanding in what happened around him. Maybe he would have a way to reach _back,_ and find out who or what was there, what was happening around him, instead of having to wait.

Arthur released his grip on the rail to clench his hands, preparing to leave, when a muffled thud in the lantern room made him startle. The timing of it was so auspicious that it was like an answer to all his thoughts and questions. Arthur’s breath caught in his chest and he whipped around, eyes wide as if it would help him see better. The lamp room was empty.

At his back, the wind picked up, ruffling his hair and his clothes. A caw in the distance filtered through the heavy fog, the sound so sharp in the otherwise mute night that it pulled at Arthur’s attention.

_What do you want._

_Tell me that you’re here._

Arthur’s heart thundered in his chest as he strained his entire person to hear. He bit his lip so that his breath wouldn’t escape him and drown out a response. The silence stretched out, taking on that endless quality that Arthur had half-forgotten, that had followed him during those early days at the lighthouse before he’d become distracted by whatever else lived with him.

“What do you believe in?” Morgana had asked once.

The answer then had been simple. “I believe in what I can see,” Arthur had said.

“Yes,” Morgana had said. “But what about the things you can’t?”

“I have faith,” Arthur had said, which, then, had been a simple thing to claim.

Arthur stepped back into the lantern room, shutting the balcony door after him. Inside was warm and cosy. The flame stood tall on the wick with barely a ripple. Everything was in place. Nothing had moved.

What did he believe in? Finding things shut when he had opened them, the echo of someone else’s footsteps -- was this what Morgana meant? Did the reality of what was happening cross into believable only because he had seen it?

Arthur glanced back to the ocean, separated from him by the thick sheet of glass, as if the answer lay in its depths.

There was nothing, not yet, so he gathered his notes and headed back down to the record room. Arthur sat down in front of his desk and rubbed his face. His facial hair prickled against his palms and he made a tired note to shave at some point. Arthur looked at his letter again, read the words over and over until they blurred into a senseless block of text, then he slid it into the pages of his record book.

Morgana was out of reach and would be so for some time. But Arthur was here, now. He resolved to listen. 

-

Arthur was fond of the balcony that circled the lantern room. When it had been cooler, during those early days of the lighthouse when the isolation hadn’t pressed so painfully upon him, he would linger on the balcony with a mug of tea. There had been a sense of freedom about it, after having completed his tasks for that morning. But more than that, it was also a measure of personal success -- being there as he agreed in spite of the circumstances, and taking to the task with an ease that bordered on smug.

Perhaps this was why he was fond of it there. Standing on the balcony -- overlooking the ocean, it gave him back some of that freedom, some lingering amount of personal satisfaction as faint as it was. It reminded him of what it had felt like, even if he didn’t feel the exact same thing anymore.

That morning, Arthur checked the lamp, the oil, and the wick. He ran his fingertips over the glass to check for hairline cracks and found none. Then he cleaned it all and the oiled the joinery.

In the process of transferring everything into the record book balanced on his forearm, Arthur stopped short. At some point, the day had shifted around him. There was a specific feel to it -- a sensation that prickled down his spine, as if the nerves had been touched by ice. Only now the chill was accompanied by a tightening knot in his stomach. Excitement. Anticipation. He didn’t acknowledge the change. Not yet.

Moving with deliberate care, Arthur set the pen in the open spine of the book and closed it.

Glancing around, he saw a small desk standing just to the left of him, close to the open entrance of the lighthouse. The shadows of the stairs beyond stood quiet and still, albeit bright from the morning light.

Arthur moved to set his book on the desk. An oilskin coat was already heaped on top, one of the sleeves dangling down. Arthur picked it up, and rubbed his thumb against the glossy material before he folded onto the table so that it didn’t hang.

Satisfied that nothing would change around him, Arthur looked up, squinting. The day outside differed little from his own. The clouds were thick and grey, vaguely ominous with a hint of a storm. The ocean below was restless and dark. A few seabirds were visible from where he stood, bright slashes of white against the grey sky as they fought against the strength of the wind before giving up, catching whatever wind steam they could and disappearing so fast it was as if they had blinked out of existence.

The sounds filtered in last: the ever-present crash of waves, the wind, the birds.

A metallic thud made Arthur’s heart jerk in his chest. He tensed, muscles drawing tight, ready to react. He cast another glance around the immediate area, aware now of the muffled clanging and the faint ring of metal.

There was a man on the balcony.

Arthur’s hand found that desk and he let it take his weight. Everything around him seemed to spin -- the floor tipping to one side, and the straight lines of the glass walls bowing out around him so that it was as if he stood in the middle of a fishbowl. The man on the balcony didn’t appear to notice. He didn’t appear to notice anything at all as he clattered around.

Slowly, the world righted itself and Arthur drew himself straight. He didn’t take his eyes off the man. He moved with care, hardly daring to breathe as he crossed to the glass wall that separated them. He didn’t want to lose this moment, didn’t want it to turn cold, to slip through his fingers and disappear. Not when when he was so close.

 _Close to what_. Arthur watched as the man outside ran his hands through his hair. There was a frown on his face and his brows were low and tight on his forehead. _To what_ , Arthur thought again. Close to understanding what was happening? Close to another person?

The man outside was the man who had been in the kitchen all those nights ago. There had been two men then -- another stockier fellow. Arthur had barely spared the other man a glance, not when it had been perfectly clear to him then that it was _this man_ , the same person who had been in the lamp room, who had disappeared when he had climbed the steps to find him.

Arthur looked at him now. He took in how tall he was, the colour of his hair -- dark, curling over his ears and ruffled by the wind. His eyes looked blue from where Arthur stood, a detail he had missed those other times he had seen him. The man’s face was angles softened by the gentle curve of his chin and generous mouth. His skin was white, pink at his cheeks and ears.

The man wore much the same as what Arthur had on now: a thin jacket over a shirt and trousers paired with sturdy boots. But there were aspects of his clothing that Arthur didn’t recognise -- the coat sat tighter at the waist, more form-fitting than what Arthur wore; and the boots were of a different design, not as tall, and the man had tucked his trousers into the top of them so that the material puffed out just above the ankle. There was also a thin red scarf wound around the man’s neck, tucked into the collar of his shirt so that it didn’t catch the wind.

Arthur took in all the details and savoured them.

He didn’t know how long he stood watching, but it was long enough for it to be impolite. Arthur swallowed, aware of the bob of his throat, of his breath against the glass and how it was warmly reflected back at him. His eyes hurt a little from the glare of the sun against the ocean. But he refused to blink, refused to announce his presence, not just yet, not when he wanted to believe that this man shared the task of lighthouse keeping with him. That he shared the lighthouse with him, and  who knew him, who talked to him, who made it so he wasn’t alone. Arthur wanted that for a moment more.

Arthur pressed both hands to the glass and curled his fingers against the smooth, cool surface of it.

The man outside tilted his head up, trying to peer at something overhead. He squinted in the glare, frowning. He looked to be thinking, and Arthur stared at his face, which was expressive enough for Arthur to know when the man came to his decision.

Arthur watched, his previous desire shifting gently to curiosity, as the man grabbed a low stool and a rope. The man tied one end to the rails behind him and yanked to test the knot, then he wrapped the other end of the rope around his left arm and stepped on the stool.

The bottom of Arthur’s stomach dropped out.

“Wait,” he said. “Dammit, _wait_.”

The man failed to react. The stool must have shifted under him because he fell to a slight crouch, throwing out an arm to steady himself. Nerves thrilled under Arthur’s skin. His mind raced. Could the man not hear him? Could he not see? Was the man-- Was he--

Outside, the man reached up and grabbed onto overhanging eaves. Faintly, Arthur heard the metal groan under the testing weight. The man bit his lower lip and visibly tensed his body, prepared to haul himself onto the roof of the lantern room via a means that _would not hold his weight._

Anger burst bright and hot through Arthur’s body. His ears rung with it. His stomach roiled. He didn’t even notice that he had scrambled out onto the balcony until he stood on the grated metal platform and was struck by the wind. Arthur’s breath was punched out of him and he dragged in another lungful. A thread of fear went through him at the sudden cold. Had the moment changed? Was he back in his own world.

  
Arthur scrambled around to the other side where the man had been, where he had somehow managed to climb up onto the roof without ripping off the eaves and falling. The sight of his legs -- still scrambling for purchase -- made Arthur’s stomach drop again, that sharp sense of vertigo as if he was the one in freefall, and his mind played out what it would look like: the man slipping, his hands missing the rail, and the rope snapping from the sudden, unexpected weight.

Then, it happened. There was a metallic thud, an audible hitch of breath. The man’s legs scrambled for a foothold as he slid backwards, and his hands smacked against the roof of the lantern room, failing over and over to find something to grab.

Arthur launched and crashed hard.

It took a long moment for Arthur to orientate himself, to understand that he was sprawled on the balcony floor, crushed under the weight of another person. His head rang. So did his ears. He couldn’t take a full breath. His entire left side burned, like he’d been dragged along a bed of gravel. His knees, elbows, and left shoulder throbbed in time with his thundering heart. He clenched his jaw and screwed his eyes shut in an effort to grab control of it all.

Beside him, the man shifted, slowly untangling himself from Arthur, hissing in pain as he pulled himself up. Flailing, Arthur followed, bracing before he pushed up to sit. The world tilted around him. He had to shut his eyes and breathe. The wind pulled at his hair and clothes, it touched his warm cheeks. Arthur concentrated on the sensation until the blend of pain and faint nausea receded, then he opened his eyes.

The man was still there beside him, a hand pressed to his head and eyes shut tight. The rope had unravelled, heaped beside them.

“Are you all right?” Arthur asked. It felt as if he spoke with an absence of breath, the words stripped back and raw. “Are you--”

Arthur reached out as he spoke, clasping the man’s upper arm. The fabric was cool to touch, but there was warmth from underneath and it gave Arthur a pause, attention flickering down to where his hand was wrapped around the man’s arm. Arthur looked back to the man’s face, where he regarded him in return. His face was white, a touch too pale. From shock, perhaps. Arthur squeezed the man’s arm, and the man gave a slight nod in return.

The moment drew long, and neither of them moved. Arthur had started to speak more than once, words fading before they had a chance to be said. There were too many thoughts in his head. All the questions, concerns, the theories he’d nursed over the last month rising swiftly to the surface only to be lost. Arthur’s heart beat hard and his ears continued to ring, but he wasn’t sure if it was his nerves or because of this man.

 _Where do you come from_ , he wanted to ask. _Why are you here. How is this possible._

Together, they scrambled upright, their boots sliding and banging on the platform, sending jolts of vibration up through Arthur’s legs. Arthur reached out again when the man started to pitch forward. He steadied him, only releasing the man when he grimaced and cradled his arm to his chest. The gesture reminded Arthur of his own hurts -- his aching knees and shoulder. The burn at his side had faded somewhat, warm under his ribs. He resisted the urge to check, not wanting to look away from the person in front of him.

The wind buffeted around them, catching the loose ends of their clothes so that they snapped and whipped in the breeze. The collar of Arthur’s coat smacked against his jaw. But it wasn’t cold. It wasn’t that familiar chill that rode up Arthur’s spine whenever the world changed around him. He reached for his mother’s crucifix and squeezed it tight enough that the points of it dug into the flesh of his palm. The bright sparks of pain sharpened his thoughts, shifting the awe, the confusion, the relief to one side, letting the glimmer of what lay beneath break through.

Arthur released his crucifix abruptly and took a step back as if the distance would provide a more objective view. Everything bubbled up in his chest. A tumult of words and feelings, the confusing, lonely weeks of it all, building up and up until it crested--

“What were you _doing_ ,” Arthur said.

He was yelling and he knew it, voice hoarse over the wind around them and the waves underneath. His heart hammered and he had to clench his hands to keep them from shaking.

The man didn’t answer him. He just stared at him with wide eyes and his arm still cradled to his chest. Arthur shoved his hands through his hair and walked a tight circuit on the platform. The burn of anger was bright in his chest, bright and hot and foreign, some forgotten part of him brought back to life. He couldn’t understand. Why would--

“I was checking.”

Arthur jerked his attention back to the man, surprised that he had spoken. He had expected him to remain silent or to have disappeared. Arthur didn’t expect his voice -- the clear sound, the richness of it -- much less to hear it with that amount of steadiness and certainty.

Arthur clenched his jaw and forced his calm.

The man watched him, eyes considering, before he licked his lips and said, “Will-- the other keeper here with me -- was injured when the glass case of the lamp..." The man’s expression shifted, lips twisting. There was anger there, and a layer to his words that spoke of something else. Arthur didn’t know enough of the situation to understand. Then he continued, "The lamp exploded the other day. I just… I just need to know what caused it. If it was something I could have prevented.”

Arthur stared at the man’s face, confusion momentarily winning out over everything else. He reached for the most obvious issue. “Exploded? How?”

“That’s what I was trying to find out.”

“How?” Arthur said again, and before he could help it, he continued, “By killing yourself? No, sorry. That was inappropriate.”

Arthur stopped and rubbed his face with his hands, needing to breathe. His palms smelled of metal and skin, and he concentrated on that and, once his thoughts were steady, on the glass case of the lamp. It had exploded. Arthur lifted his head and glanced to the lamp, where it sat in the middle of the room, glinting faintly. He couldn’t imagine for any reason why it would explode.

Arthur tilted his head up to where the man had tried to climb the roof.

The wind picked up as the man opened his mouth to speak again. The moment was slipping away. Instinctively, Arthur reached out. Not yet. He saw panic flash across the man’s face.

“Merlin,” he called out just as everything shifted. “I’m Merli--”

 

**1932**

 

“It’s haunted,” the shop attendant said.

Merlin was only half-listening, more interested in the small collection of goods on offer than the conversation taking place behind him.

Distantly, he heard Will respond, saying, “Is it?” in a way that pulled Merlin’s attention.

The attendant was a petite woman with blonde hair. The sunlight filtering through the window obscured the features of her face, the light too bright and the shadows too dark in turn, but Will was enthralled either way. He leaned against the counter and tilted a smile up to her.

“You’re not pulling it are you?” Will continued, playful and interested, as if talking about ghosts was something that interested him.

Merlin tuned them out and set his thoughts to their upcoming first rotation at the lighthouse. What else did they need? His gaze slid over the paltry selection stocked on the shelves. Tinned meat, bars of soap wrapped in wax paper, jars of pickled vegetables that looked ghoulish floating in brine.

Merlin exhaled hard when Will laughed too loud for the small shop. Bored of waiting, he turned from the shelves and strode over to the counter. The attendant glanced at him, the colour of her cheeks deepening, before she looked away.

There was a part of Merlin that caught on to the woman’s interest, that quietly urged him to pursue it, but the bulk of him was more concerned about the time they were to meet Leon to be taken to the lighthouse.

So instead, Merlin said, “Sorry, but we’re going to be late.”

Will cast him a glance, his expression tightening before he arranged it into a smile. “Sure. One second.”

Will bought paid for the small, last minute necessities, thanked the attendant, and they left.

Outside, the late morning was cool and a breeze came up from across the ocean, bringing with it the familiar smell of salty water. The sun was hidden by the clouds, but the glare was hard and strong. It was a pleasant contrast to Will, who’d gone quiet and broody beside him. Merlin assumed it was because of the girl at the shop, and he figured that Will could see her again when they were relieved, if he wanted.

The community of Avalon was small and close-knit. There was a drowsiness to the township that reminded Merlin of Ealdor, but that was likely him looking for figments of his home town in new places. He’d done the same when he’d moved to the city, and had been quietly appalled at any similarity he’d imagined the moment he had returned home.

Avalon was a beach town, but one built more on tourism than Ealdor beach had been. Avalon did not have as many trees or many fields in comparison to Ealdor proper; it had a lacking of greenery in general, all of it replaced with grey concrete, and the endless rows of tall, square houses packed tightly together.

Merlin and Will followed the sloping street that cut through the town, passing house upon house. The fronts were all whitewashed stucco, designed to weather the harshness of sea air. Some of the houses had small pots of flowers placed here and there, on the window sills or door steps, but they were otherwise identical. Merlin clenched his hands in the pockets of his coat to quell the urge to run his hands along the facades.

If Merlin tilted his head, he could see a sliver of blue ocean behind the houses. The road they followed, he knew, veered to the left, and that would take them down--

“Did you hear what she said?” Will’s question broke through his thoughts. “She said that the lighthouse is haunted. Did you want an apple, by the way? You don’t want scurvy, do you?”

“I’m fine, Will,” Merlin said.

“Right, right.” Will paused for a moment before he took an audible breath.

“You did hear it though. She said that some nights you could see the ship from the beach. What ship, I asked. The _Excalibur_ , apparently. Bit of a fancy name for a ship. _HMS Excalibur_. Ran aground a reef and it tore up the hull. They call it Arthur’s Lighthouse because that was the name of the keeper at the time. Saved a whole lot of the passengers before he drowned in the storm. Found him washed up three days later.”

Will stopped again, and Merlin nodded, distracted. The veer in the road was coming up.

“So?” Will asked after a moment. This time, there was an impatient edge to his voice. “What do you think?”

Merlin cast Will a perplexed look. Will returned it evenly, expectantly, and there was a nervous twist in Merlin’s belly that he’d been tested, that Will had asked a trick question, and he couldn’t figure out what it was, exactly.

“About what?” Merlin asked, finally, before he said, “We’re going to be late.”

“About the lighthouse,” Will said.

They had stopped in the middle of the road. The breeze ruffled Merlin’s hair, and the sensation of it -- along with the smell, and the far cry of gulls, all of this familiar -- steadied him. He remembered the night that Will had called at his childhood home, asking for a favour, reminding him that they used to get along, that they used to be friends; that they could both use the job and the income. He didn’t have to play along with this.

“I’m happy for the work,” Merlin said after a pause, and continued walking.

-

It hurt to hold his arm a certain way. The ligaments and tendons had been extended beyond their capabilities, and the resulting bruises were mottled along his bicep and over the cusp of his shoulder. There were more on his side and hip -- turning purple, still green at the edges, two hand spans wide -- where he’d landed half on Arthur. There was a wedge of bruising that was shaped in the pattern of the metal grill of the balcony, pressed at the crest of his hip over the bone. That one ached when he moved.

But the pain mattered little.

If he closed his eyes and concentrated, he could still feel Arthur’s grip, how firm and solid it had been, how tangible. Arthur had been there. He had touched him. This wasn’t those distant, insubstantial snapshots of a previous time. Arthur was flesh and blood and bone. His skin pink with life. His hair whipped around his face by the sea wind.

It was late morning and Merlin sat on the edge of his bed and rubbed his face. He had completed all the morning’s tasks, leaving nothing else to occupy his mind. Merlin jammed the heels of his palms against his eyes until the stars behind his eyelids made him dizzy.

“Dammit,” he said, voice low and rough.

He rubbed his face again and blinked the black spots away from his vision.

Had he meant to die that day? Had he meant to slip and fall? What did it mean that time had stepped aside and allowed Arthur to save him? Had he done that himself? Called Arthur there?

Merlin didn’t know.

Merlin wished his mother was here. He wished that his father had _told him_ about what he could do.

He wished for Will to still be with him, for Leon to turn up, for Gwaine to have said something that day he dropped off the supplies. What did Gwaine know? He had hinted, hadn’t he? Could he do this, too?

Merlin wished for anything -- _anything_ , he would take anything -- so that he wasn’t alone, grappling with what had happened.

What was he meant to do. Merlin rubbed the bruising at his shoulder, as if the pain would direct his thoughts to an answer, but all it made him do was think of Arthur. What it was like for Arthur to be here, what it was like to talk to him, to touch him. He wanted it back.  

“Okay.” Merlin said it out loud so that he could hear something.

Merlin sniffed and swiped his face with his sleeve. His knee wouldn’t stop bouncing, but at least it made it feel as if he was doing something.

Around him, the lighthouse was silent, the rooms still as if they waited once more. Waiting, always waiting. There was a different aspect in the way they stood. As slight as it was, the shift was recognisable -- the impatient way everything leaned forward. Merlin cast a glance around the room. The colours had a bold edge to them now, the walls stood tall, towering over him. Nerves fluttered in Merlin stomach at the way it all pressed against him, expectant.

Merlin exhaled steadily in an effort to calm. He licked his lips. Each of his movements seemed loud to him.

“Arthur?”

Motes of dust floated through the sunlight that fell through the windows. They circled through the air, glinted white and gold at him, teasing him to reach out and touch. His fingers twitched in his lap as if they were a hairsbreadth away from doing just that. He stood.

-

With care, Merlin pulled out all of Arthur’s letters and set them on the table.

Arthur’s handwriting was familiar and dear to him. The low hanging tails of letters intercepting the words below them, the narrow bowls, the way everything leaned to the right. Merlin brushed his thumb over the words. He could see in his mind’s eye the way Arthur bent over the pages as he wrote, all the times that he stopped to think, only to discover he had blotted the page.

Merlin wondered if it annoyed him, if Arthur found the spots of ink crass against the neat and tidy arrangement of his words, if he talked himself out of pulling out a clean sheet and starting again. The ache of wanting to know was sat sweetly in the pit of Merlin’s stomach.  

_My dear sister,_

_I hope you are well. The winter has closed me off now, and I write this letter to you knowing that you won’t necessarily receive it until at least a month. I may even be the one delivering it to you--_

Merlin set the letter aside and picked up the one behind it, and then the one tucked behind that, dated almost three weeks earlier. Merlin paused, and frowned. He hadn’t paid any real attention to the dates before. He turned back to the first letter. He had assumed that Arthur was one to write a lot. Being the only one in the lighthouse, it made sense. But of all the correspondence, only one letter was creased, suggesting that it had once been folded into an envelope. Merlin ran his finger against the faded lines.

But why. Had something happened? Did no one come, or did Arthur not send anything? In the span of dates, there would have at least been two supply drops. And at least one of the letters Arthur received in return had been dated within that time slot.

Merlin turned the page he was holding and found nothing but where the ink bled through. Still frowning, he turned it over and returned to the contents--

_The days here are both long and short. It’s often difficult to understand when one day turns into the next. I often wonder--_

Here, there was a deep divot on the page. Arthur had ended the sentence there and continued on a new line:

_I would like to mention something that I think you would understand, as they are more within your realm of things._

_But before I do. You recall that morning I left for Avalon, you gave me a charm. Do you remember this? It was a small pendant with a cup on it. A grail, I believe it was. You told me to keep it for luck. If not around my neck, then in my pocket._

_I also remember that you told me a story once, about a grail and how it was used to bring to life someone who had died. It was in a cave and held aloft by the breath of seven maidens. I don’t think I was very kind after you told the story, but then you told me that all these myths and legends, these things that make up the historical fabric of our country (your words, from memory, before you accuse me of sentimentality) -- they were set in a basis of truth._

_What is the truth of that story? Does one need to take a dip in the water of the grail in order to spring back to life?_

_What I’m asking, Morgana, what of spirits?_

_Do they walk among us? Appear in empty rooms? Do you see them at the corner of your eye and have them disappear when you turn around?_

_Tell me, because I’m not sure what else to make of it. Whether I’m seeing things out of a lack of anything to see, or if there is something there after all, and ‘spirit’ is the closest approximation my mind can come up with._

_I’m not saying that I’m scared, though I’m certain that’s what you’re wondering. There is no such thing as fear to a Pendragon._

_Yours,_

_Arthur Pendragon_

Merlin set down the letter and ran his hands through his hair. He tugged hard as if the pain of it would smother the nerves that rang through him. How had he missed this letter before? How did he not realise what it said?

 _What of spirits_.

The idea of Arthur troubling over him had never even crossed his mind.

Merlin hadn’t even known that the echoes -- the glimpses -- had any real, tangible bearing on the past, like it did for him in the present. _His_ present. He hadn’t even considered it, and less so that he would find the evidence in his hands more than half a century later.

“What do I do.”

He said it out loud hoping there would be an answer. He said it out loud hoping to fill the empty space of the room. He drew in a breath, fighting disappointment, when there was still no answer. How was he expected-- how was he--

Merlin’s attention wandered back to the date of Arthur’s last letter. 19th December, 1870. A jolt went through Merlin’s stomach, and he dove for the calendar hanging on the wall. Pain rocketed through his body and his knee clipped the desk hard enough that he stumbled, knocking over a small stack of books to the floor. Merlin ignored it all.

19th December, 1870.

19th December.

The date that day was the 17th December.

Merlin’s skin prickled. Two days.

He rubbed his thumb over the print, smearing the ink on the page. He was so close that he could taste it.

Swiping his face with his hand, he shuffled through the pages, searching for Morgana’s letters, soothing the papers flat. He had to stop his hands from shaking, nerves wound tight though he tried to talk himself down, not wanting to be disappointed.

_Dear brother,_

_Thank you for your letter. I’m glad that you’re faring well in spite of the circumstances. I never did doubt that you could do it. It is simply fact that you shouldn’t have to do it alone. People are not made to be alone. I know that you will read that and think otherwise. You will say that you are capable, or stronger than the need for companionship, but at least you have read it so it’s there in that head of yours regardless._

_I have finished organising all that remains of Uther’s will and all his related loose ends. I’m sorry that you couldn’t be here for the funeral. The estate is yours, of course, but the summer houses are mine. I fully intend to gut them both. I am going to tear out all the miserable things that Uther hid there and make something worthwhile of what is left behind. I promise you this._

_Arthur, I spoke to Gwen the other day. Knowing you, you will stop reading here, but I’m telling you now not to. Gwen told me something. She asked me not to tell you, but it directly involves you and so it’s worth your knowing, even if I can see the value of it being kept in silence. I never thought it was well to keep these kind of betrayals._

_Uther told her to leave you. It was him. Did you know that? He said that he would drag her name through the mud if she didn’t. She refused, of course. So Uther promised to do the same to you._

_Arthur, if Uther hadn’t died already, I would have taken him apart myself with my hands. But as it is, he’s dead and buried, and the dirt in which he lies is too good for him._

_I wish that she thought to speak to you about it. I’m certain that you would have said that it didn’t matter. She maintains that she made the best decision._

_Gwen and Lancelot are a fine pair. Lance treats her well. She has shown me the little crib her brother made for the baby. Please think good thoughts for her. She is happy. She sends her wishes._

_I’m sorry for the way you have learned this. I’m sure there is a more correct protocol, or some social more through which to have broached the subject. But sometimes the truth is an ugly thing, and there’s little more one can do to dress it up otherwise. I still prefer that you know, so that you don’t think poorly of Gwen. Those poor thoughts belong with Uther._

_Uther was not right in his decisions towards the end, and I’m growing more aware of this. If I’m aware of it now, then I can only assume that you were aware of it before, and that you wanted to protect me from it. I suppose that is why you were so eager to accept that job, and to persist despite the circumstances. Please keep in mind this is an issue I will address with you when you return._

_I intend to turn the state of the Pendragon affairs around. You can work with me in this regard, or you can leave to me the entire estate and I shall do it myself. Again, this is a matter I intend to address upon your return._

_I do not wish to finish this letter with such news, and so I will tell you that Cenred’s cows escaped their field again, and it took him two days to find them all._

_Your sister,_

_Morgana Le Faye_

-

Merlin spent the slow creep of the next two days half out of reality.

He kept bowls of water on any surface he had spare. He glanced at each one in passing, impatient.

The time passed in such a way that it didn’t feel like it moved at all. It was only due to his records that Merlin was aware that the morning did shift into afternoon, which eventually turned into night. He couldn’t sleep. He forgot to eat, only noticing when the world seemed to tip under his feet.

Over and over, he heard his mother’s warnings. _Don’t get lost in looking_. Over and over, he thought, _I’m sorry, but I need to._

Around him, the lighthouse seemed to share his restlessness. The air charged was with it, building like a storm on the horizon, climbing to impossible heights. Awareness buzzed beneath Merlin’s skin, anticipation beat in his chest. He couldn’t stop thinking about Arthur.

Merlin woke on the morning of the 19th December with excitement and dread and anticipation knotted in the pit of his stomach. Every single one of his nerves were stitched tight. Merlin went through the motions of his day as if he were in a dream. He cleaned the lamp. He checked the oil store. He made time to eat and take down notes. The air was still that day. The sky was empty of birds.

There was something brewing within the lighthouse, and its restlessness and unease, its presence was echoed by the storm that built over the course of the day, smearing the horizon with thick, grey clouds. Merlin stood in the lantern room as the storm drew in. The wind buffeted against the glass, and the ocean flung itself against the rocky sides of the island. The sky was dark, clouds heavy with rain, the air saturated with moisture so that it was almost a taste on the tongue, salty and metallic in turn. Merlin set his hands to the chilled glass and breathed it all in.

The storm moved in with a roar of rain that drowned out the entire world. All that existed was the lighthouse, standing here on this island where it was sealed from time and from distance.

 _Please_ , Merlin thought. _Let me help._

 

**1870**

It was faint at first. So faint that Merlin thought that the sound existed in his mind until it came again, clearer.

Merlin scrambled up from where he sat on the floor, knocking over the bowl of water he had set front of him. The water didn’t spread. All it did was sit on top of the floor where it had spilt and reflect the light from the surrounding candles.

He listened beyond the beat of the rain, ignoring how his heart thud in his chest, ignoring the groan of the wind and the rolling thunder.

There.

Again.

The sound was oddly clear against the cacophony around it.

The ship’s bell. That same bell Merlin had heard over and over, slow and distant, coming into shape and focus so that he heard it now for what it was: a call for help.

Merlin saw it in his mind’s eye -- the hulking mass of the _HMS Excalibur_ caught on the reef, her hull gaping open, taking in water as it spilled out its contents into the churning ocean. He saw Arthur abandoning the light and running down the stairs. He saw Arthur dragging out the rowboat from where it was tucked behind the oil store. He saw Arthur fighting against the waves and the tide, the bow of the boat aimed for the wreck--

Merlin was jolted back by a distant explosion.

Silence swelled in the aftermath, the rain and the thunder suspended for a brief moment until Merlin _understood._

Merlin threw himself into the tower, stumbling over the stairs as he ran, as he hauled himself up bodily with his hands pressed against the walls. His breath came fast and sharp. Through it all, the bell continued to toll.

He burst into the lamp room only to be knocked off his feet, Merlin handed heavily on the ground, skidding over chips of glass. The wind and rain stung his exposed skin. It ripped at his hair and yanked at his clothes. Merlin shielded his face and tried to look, searching, but the wind and the water stung his eyes, making it impossible.

“Here!” Arthur yelled, voice hoarse over the noise.

Arthur grabbed him, hauled him up with his hands tight on Merlin’s arms. He pushed Merlin away from where the glass had broken, away from the vacuum of the storm outside.

“We need to replace the light,” Arthur was shouting. “The lightning and hail took out the glass on the west side.”

“There’s a ship there,” Merlin said.

“I know. I _know_ ,” Arthur’s voice cracked on the word. “I was going to-- We need to do this _now,_  if it's going to do anything. _Help me.”_

They cleared the glass. The lenses and the wick was exposed. Everything was soaked. They worked quickly, grabbing what they could shield the flame from the elements, to replace the oil. The ship's bell continued to ring, countdown or a warning. The water made everything slippery and the cold made Merlin's fingers numb. It hurt to do the finer tasks; he couldn’t get his fingers to move the way he wanted, couldn’t get his hands to respond the way he needed. Where Merlin fumbled, Arthur took it in stride, stepping in where Merlin’s fingers stumbled over clips and connections to put them together himself. Water dripped in Merlin’s eyes, and he swiped at his face, distractedly annoyed. Together, they shut the lantern and watched.

 _Take_ , Merlin thought. He didn’t even dare to breathe in case it killed the flame, because if it didn't take-- if it didn't take, then what was the point? What was the point if Arthur still had to take the rowboat out, still gave up his life for the _Excalibur._ That's why Merlin was here, wasn't it?

The wick wouldn’t light. Both he and Arthur fumbled over the flame and the oil. Then they tried again.

_Take._

Around them, the storm continued to rage, but their focus was condensed to the tiny spark of light. The wick stuttered. Merlin grabbed Arthur’s arm and dug in his fingers. Arthur stood tense and still beside him, body tight with barely restrained energy, already prepared to abandon the light for the rowboat. Every single nerve, every single fibre of Merlin's body willed the flame to life.

_Take._

The wick burned faintly. It stuttered and threatened to die, the light faint, barely a glow. Then seared into life, throwing its beam across the ocean and to the ship.

Elation swelled in Merlin and he staggered back, shoving his hands through his wet hair. His boots crunched over broken glass and hail, and he staggered, nearly slipping. Arthur grabbed him, his hand tight on Merlin’s upper arm. Merlin froze, aware of the firm pressure of Arthur’s hand, the strength and heat of it anchoring him to Arthur’s present.

Merlin didn’t want him to let go. He stared at Arthur’s face as the thought unfurled in his mind, coming so easily to him as if it had always been there, lying in wait.

The storm continued to rage around them. The rain stung his skin and his eyes. Merlin wanted to speak. He wanted to move. But he also didn’t want to speak, nor did he want to move in case doing so would take him from this place.

Merlin’s eyes stung and he fought against the instinct to blink. There was a swelling in his chest, mixed in with exhilaration, pride, and a deep-seated affection; the stark realisation that he didn’t want to leave Arthur, not yet, and not in this way. His body buzzed with sheer potential, his mind hummed with thoughts too numerous to put words to.

Before him, Arthur stood there, his hair plastered flat against his head, his eyes incredibly blue, and his mouth ajar like he had started to speak but had stopped. His grip tightened on Merlin’s arm, and it coaxed Merlin forward. Merlin felt his eyelashes flutter, he felt the burn in his eyes. 

The image of Arthur blurred in front of him.  _He's alive_ , Merlin thought, the last clear thing through his head before everything shifted. He's alive.

 

**1932**

 Merlin made his way up to the lantern room. It was cool that morning, and the sky overhead was clear for once. He set down the bucket of water, and turned to the light -- opening the cage to tend to the lamp inside. He trimmed the wick and checked the oil levels. He cleaned the glass case of the light, checked the lenses, closed it all up, and then moved on to the windows.

Rivulets of cold water ran down his arm and soaked into the sleeves of his shirt as he worked, the chill of it making his skin prickle. Merlin ignored it all and continued, working his way around the small room.

Merlin let his mind wander while doing so, but only in small increments. He let himself notice the birds first, how they sat suspended in the sky with their wings outstretched. Then he allowed himself to become distracted by the way the ocean glittered under the sun. He would have to go out later. It seemed like a good day for it. It would be nice to have warmth of the sun against his neck, to feel the heat of it sink into his shirt. He could take a book out to read.

The water ran in long trails along the glass and Merlin followed it with the cloth. He wrung it out and repeated the process, back aching, hands aching. It was as if there was a newness to it all even if it had been a task he’d repeated over and over for the last month or so. There was a certain lightness to it this time. A certain kind of ease. Or perhaps he was melancholic. It was difficult to parse and put a name to, but it was there, cradled deep in his chest -- too sweet to call it an ache, but too painful to shrug it off and call it nothing.

Merlin continued around the room, squinting at the dazzle of the sun and water. He looked down to the ocean below and looked hard, only to find nothing. Then he turned his focus to the mainland and tried to make out the individual houses of the town perched on the rise.

The cleaning cloth caught on a splinter or a filament of exposed metal, and it dragged Merlin’s attention back to the task.

With care, he untangled it, then he ducked his head to inspect the damage. It seemed to be on one of the narrow wooden feature beams. His first thought had been that it had split, which made sense, considering, and his mind had already set out a course of action: shave it down and seal it before it worsened. He would have to check along all the boards, in case there were stress fractures there, too--

But the split felt peculiar under his fingers. Too neat, and too distinct to be a naturally formed break.

Merlin shifted for a better look, coming to a low crouch, and saw what was carved neatly into the wood.

 _Thank you_.

Merlin sat abruptly, his legs unable to bear him. He wasn’t even able to draw a full lungful of air, as if he had been suddenly buried under something so great that it smothered any connection he had with his body. He couldn’t move. He couldn’t do anything but sit there and stare at the words until it was almost dusk.

-

Arthur’s entries after the month of January were intercepted by another person’s hand.

A man named Elyan Browning, who stayed with Arthur until February. Arthur and Elyan worked a usual rotation after Arthur’s extended leave with the added assistance of Percival. Merlin hoped they got along well. But more than that, he was happy for the fact that Arthur was… had been less alone.

Unlike the previous copy of Arthur’s record book, this one didn’t have a handful of letters kept inside. Merlin told himself that he wasn’t disappointed. What it meant was that the letters had reached their intended recipients, and who was he to be upset about that.

Merlin swiped at his face with his hand and moved to shut the book and slot it back into place. An envelope slid out as he lifted the book up, tumbling from where it was hidden to fall onto the desk. It was a small, square thing, yellowed with age. A single name scrawled on the front and reading it made Merlin’s chest clench, made his eyes water so that his name blurred out.

There it was, the name for the thing in his chest.

He missed Arthur.

-

 _Merlin_ ,

_I assume that you have since repaired the railing on the east side panel of the balcony. If not, I strongly advise you should because I doubt that I will be able to save your neck a second time._

_I’m going to take a moment to be honest here and say that it is odd not having you around. The circumstances surrounding it all could have been better, I’m certain of this. It is disorientating to look back upon, but I’ve learned to accept what I’ve experienced as fact. I’m not going to take it all apart in search for a greater meaning, more than the number of lives we -- you -- saved that night._

_You were there when no one else could be and there is something to be missed in that. It’s been months now since there’s been a glimpse of you, and yet sometimes I find myself waiting, trying to see beyond what sits in front of me. I keep waiting for you. I think you would understand._

_My only wish is that the circumstances were different so I could sit you down and talk. I’m curious. I can’t stop thinking about it._

_As such, we remain parted by the situation that had brought us together in the first place. I envy the people who know you, and how it will never be me._

_Please take care. Of yourself and of your gifts._

_I remain always your friend,_

_Arthur Pendragon_

-

At first, Merlin didn’t pay the sound any heed because he wasn’t expecting it. He sat at the dining table, reading when it happened, coming as a single firm strike at the door. Merlin tilted his head, listening to the silence that followed. A bird, he concluded. Maybe the door of the oil stock blown open and banging in the wind. He’d finish the page he was on and go check.

Then it came again.

This time, Merlin froze. After a moment, he turned his head to stare at the door. It had been the birds, surely. Or a particularly aggressive wave. He licked his lips as he stared, trying hard not to acknowledge what stirred in the pit of his stomach. The last thing Merlin wanted was to think that someone was there.

“Hello?” a voice called out.

Merlin scrambled from his chair, nearly tripping over the legs in his hurry to the door. His heart was high in his chest, his hands suddenly clammy with nerves. It was too deep into winter for another supply drop, wasn’t it? Surely Gwaine hadn’t made the journey. Perhaps it was Leon checking in. Or maybe Will was back, which in that case...

Merlin opened the door.

The world faded around him as he stared at the man on the other side.

Arthur stared back, wide-eyed, with his hand extended in a loose fist. There had been annoyance on his face, his familiar features pulled to a tight frown. Merlin had caught it before it had gone slack in clear shock.

How long they stood there, Merlin didn’t know. A lifetime, probably. Maybe two. Days and months and years passing around them without notice or concern. Merlin couldn’t find it in him to look away, just in case-- in case...

“Oh,” Arthur said, finally. His voice was rich with tender wonder. “It’s you.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!


End file.
